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Ethnic Preference and Public Policy in Developing States
Ethnic Preference and Public Policy in Developing States edited by Neil Nevitte and Charles H. Kennedy
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Boulder, Colorado
Published in the United States of America in 1986 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 948 North Street, Suite 8, Boulder, Colorado 80302 ©1986 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Library
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Cataloging-in-Publicatlon
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Ethnic preference and public policy in developing states. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Ethnic groups—Government policy—Developing countries. 2. Developing countries—Ethnic relations. 3. Developing countries—Politics and government. 4. Developing countries—Economic conditions—Regional disparities. I. Nevitte, Neil. II. Kennedy, Charles H. JF1063.D44E87 1986 323.r09712'4 86-13505 ISBN 0-931477-89-1
Distributed outside of North and South America and Japan by Frances Pinter (Publishers) Ltd, 25 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DS England. UK ISBN 0-86187-672-5 Printed and bound in the United States of America
Contents List of Tables
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Acknowledgments
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2
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The Analysis of Policies of Ethnic Preference in Developing States Neil Nevitte and Charles H. Kennedy State and Ethnicity in Africa: A Policy Perspective Donald Rothchild
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Policies of Redistributional Preference in Pakistan Charles H. Kennedy
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Ethnic Preference Policies in Malaysia Gordon P. Means
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Ethnic Aspects of Privatization in Malaysia R. S. Milne
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Policies of Ethnic Preference in Sri Lanka Robert Oberst
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Politics of Preference in the Caribbean: The Case of Guyana Ralph R.Premdas
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Contributors
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Index
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V
Tables 3.1
Regional Representation of Federal Bureaucracy, 1973-1983
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Regional Representation in Sectors
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of the Federal Bureaucracy, 1974
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3.3
Officers of Federal Bureaucracy by District of Domicile
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4.1
Malaysia: Ethnic Distribution, Income Estimates, and Share Capital Ownership
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6.1
Ethnic Population of Sri Lanka
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6.2
Religious Composition of the Sri Lankan Population
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6.3 6.4
Languages Three YearsSpoken of Age by andPersons Above, 1953 Ethnic Composition
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of Selected Government Services, 1870-1946
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6.5
Tamil Representation in the Cabinets of Sri Lanka
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6.6
Ethnic Group and Government Employees Hired in Selected Fields, 7/22/77-10/12/79
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7.1
Allocation Patterns
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7.2
Ethnic Composition of Guyana's Population
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7.3
The Electorate in 1915
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7.4
Ethnic Shares in the Public Service, 1925
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7.5
Ethnic Composition of Pensionable Civil Servants, 1940
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7.6
Tables
Racial Composition of Staff Employed in all Ministries and Departments in British Guiana
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7.7
Racial Composition of the Security Forces in British Guiana
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7.8
Distribution Security Forces by Rank and of Race in British Guiana, 1965
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7.9
Distribution of Population by Race in Sugar Estates, Villages, and Urban Centers of British Guiana, 1891-1960
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7.10 Total Racial Distribution in the Security Forces, the Civil Service, Government Agencies and Undertakings, and Areas of Government Responsibility
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7.11 Composition of Population by Race
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Acknowledgments This volume grew out of the presentations of a panel organized for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington, D.C., in September 1984. In editing this volume and conducting the panel, we received assistance from a number of organizations and individuals. We wish to acknowledge their help. The Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, and the Department of Politics, Wake Forest University, provided important logistical support throughout the project. Also, a number of individuals provided assistance with the preparation of the manuscript. As in any enterprise of this sort, skillful secretarial assistance is essential. We were lucky to have such assistance from Judy Powell and Cecile Calverley at the University of Calgary and Elide Vargas at Wake Forest University. Norman Hill and Jean Seeman at Wake Forest provided important technical assistance, and the Research and Publications Fund of the Graduate School of Wake Forest University provided financial assistance during the final stages of manuscript preparation. Finally, we would like to thank the contributors, both those who presented their papers (which they then revised for this text) at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and those who prepared chapters especially for this volume. All the contributors shared their insights with a spirit of openness and good will, they listened patiently to ponderous editorial queries and suggestions, and they responded promptly to all of our requests. Neil Nevitte Charles H. Kennedy
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1 The Analysis of Policies of Ethnic Preference in Developing States NEIL NEVITTE / CHARLES H. KENNEDY State policies of preference for one group are contentious because they engage fundamental questions about fair access to or just distribution of valued resources. The use of the state to confer special advantages on particular groups is hardly a novel theme. The divisive potential of such preferential treatment has been realized across such historically significant divisions as citizen versus slave, the propertied versus the propertyless, black versus white, Catholic versus Protestant, and the enfranchised versus the unenfranchised. What is more novel, at least from a Western perspective, is the conscious deployment of preferential policies as a strategy for regulating social conflicts. For example, affirmative action or compensatory legislation is widely regarded as a tool for regulating, and rendering more benign, contemporary social divisions grounded in age, gender, physical disability, and sexual preference. Given the sheer variety of preferential policies, the diversity of relevant social divisions, and the vast historical sweep of the evidence, it would be a herculean task to develop a comprehensive explanation of how preferential policies affect social conflict in general. The contributors to this volume, however, have a more modest goal: to examine how a special type of preferential policy, policies of ethnic preference, work to affect communal conflict in a particular setting, that of developing states. There are sensible, practical reasons for limiting the scope of any study. The central problem becomes more accessible, the analysis more focused and manageable, and the chances of making some advance, though it may be a modest advance, are improved. But after the legitimate practical reasons are set aside other more crucial questions emerge. For example, what is the rationale for delineating a problem in a particular way? What sort of approach is germane to the analysis of the problem? What are the prospects of learning general lessons from the analysis of a limited subset of cases? The purpose
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of this chapter is to address these questions, and more particularly, to expose the volume's theoretical supports in order to identify the strengths and limitations of the analytical approach. By way of conclusion this chapter draws attention to central themes common to the analyses of different contributors and suggests what implications flow from the collective efforts of the contributors.
Focus: Theoretical
Considerations
To delineate the scope of any inquiry requires that two sorts of analystical decisions be made. The first has to do with focus, i.e., establishing the range of the phenomenon to be explained. The second has to do with approach and the decision of how the phenomenon in question is to be explained. The decision to limit the range of inquiry to one type of social division, ethnicity, in effect identifies the principal unit of analysis—the ethnic community. Ethnic community is commonly defined as a collectivity within a larger society that claims common ancestry, a shared past, and shared subjective cultural identifications. Such a definition stresses the importance of identification and thus emphasizes the subjective qualities of ethnicity, but membership in an ethnic community is not entirely voluntaristic or a question of individual choice. Although the individual is not constrained by ethnic group membership in the sense that gender characteristics are involuntarily predetermined, ethnic identifications cannot be readily shed, and membership in ethnic communities cannot be abandoned at will. The constraints on ethnic group membership, however, are not merely subjective. As moral economists, social anthropologists, and others have pointed out, ethnic communal solidarity also involves a network of social, economic, and moral as well as cultural relationships. 1 Thus, communal solidarity is reinforced by the interaction of instrumental and psychic factors. Two important consequences flow from this observation. First, the costs of exit from an ethnic community are extremely high, and thus, ethnic identity and communal membership tend not to be bargainable. Second, to adopt the ethnic group as a primary focus of analysis does not mean that economic, class, or status factors are preempted or precluded from consideration. On the contrary, the starting assumption in this volume is that ethnic groups, like other groups, have interests and that those interests embrace economic, status, and class factors as well as the religious and linguistic hallmarks of cultural groups. The focus on ethnicity is further circumscribed by a second distinction, between developing states and Western states, and attention is limited here to a consideration of policies of preference and intercommunal ethnic conflict in developing states. 2 There are several reasons for suggesting that contextual
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factors shape the deployment of policies of ethnic preference in developing states in ways that are qualitatively different from comparable policies in the developed West First, in developing states ethnicity is frequently a principal axis of political conflict. Indeed, as will be apparent from all of the cases in this volume, the levels of interethnic communal rivalry are often sufficiently high as to threaten regime stability. In some instances, ethnic rivalries threaten the very foundations of the state itself. In this context the search for strategies to manage such conflicts is a "high stakes" enterprise because the failure to develop conflict regulating solutions holds critical consequences. A second set of contextual factors unique to developing states may explain why this is so. As indicated at the outset, policies of preferences revolve around the distributional issue of how to allocate scarce resources. There is no sense in which developing states enjoy economic surpluses or the magnitude of resources commonly available for allocation in developed Western states. Nor, given the typical dependence on primary resource exports, the value of which fluctuates dramatically on world markets, and given the structure of the international economic system, can developing states realistically cling to the prospects of a Western-type economic expansion that ostensibly will alleviate allocative problems. 3 Just as the resources for allocation are scarce, so can the interethnic competition for those limited resources be expected to be intense. The concept of resources, of course, is not limited to economic goods; it extends also to what may be broadly referred to as organizational capacity, and in this respect, too, there are fundamental differences between developing and Western states. Compared to Western states, most developing states, in fact all of those states considered in this volume, have a limited organizational capacity. Organizational capacity is limited not only by a relative shortage of skilled administrative and political personnel, but also by relatively weak institutional structures and norms. The difference between ethnic conflict in developing and Western states is one of kind and not degree because the impact of the contextual factors is not merely additive; rather it is magnified by the interaction of each factor with the others. Any allocative decision is difficult in an environment of weak institutional structures and norms. But those decisions are even more difficult in that environment when there is crippling economic scarcity and an absence of significant other crosscutting social divisions that could countervail or moderate ethnic communal identifications. 4 The reason developing states have weak organizational capacity exposes another difference between developing and Western states. Developing countries have achieved political independence only relatively recently and as a consequence have limited experience with autonomous institutions. Moreover, the contemporary character of those institutions was forged in, and inherited from, the crucible of the colonial experience. As J. S. Furnivall and
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others have shown, the type of colonial experience is of considerable importance to historically grounded explanations of the performance of recently autonomous regimes. 5 Essentially, comparative analysts have a choice as to how to incorporate the "colonial heritage" variable into explanations of postcolonial regime performance. One strategy is to compare states with different types of colonial experiences, say British and French excolonies, and to include variations of the colonial experience into the explanations of the preformance of new states. The alternative approach, and the one adopted here, is to compare the regime performances of those countries that share similar, in this instance, British, colonial heritages. This approach imposes a form of analytical control on (variation in ) "colonial heritage," but it does not deflect attention away from the significance of the colonial experience itself. 6 In the 1960s a conventional, and now mostly bankrupt, developmentalist perspective held the view that new states had much to learn about their developmental path and prospects from Western experience. By extension, some might be tempted to suggest that new states could learn a great deal about managing ethnic conflict from Western experience also. It is not very clear, however, precisely what lessons could be learned from Western practices in this respect. Indeed, we have argued that ethnic conflict in developing states is qualitatively different from that found in the West, and that difference suggests an intriguing alternative possibility—that the West may learn a great deal about the dynamics of managing ethnic conflict from the experience of developing states. This is so because in developing states ethnic conflicts are most central, the search for solutions most urgent, and the resources that can be brought to bear on those solutions most limited.
Theoretical
Approach
The choice of approach presents a major dilemma for any crossnational analysis. The wide variety of candidate theoretical approaches familiar to most social scientists range from straightforward description of the particular on the one hand to global generalization on the other. 7 Studies of the particular are criticized for being merely descriptive and for having an atheoretical preoccupation with the unique. The search for a global generalization that calls for synthesis and abstraction in turn, can be challenged on the grounds that general theories are rootless, inapplicable, and unrecognizable because they attenuate reality. In fact, of course, description is a necessary first step in any analysis. All comparativists confront the issue of how description feeds theory and how to settle the trade-off between the general and particular. The problem of finding a middle ground is multiplied in collaborative enterprises
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such as this one, notwithstanding the fact that the project's focus has already been limited in significant respects. One way of dealing with this problem is to allow collaborators maximum freedom, leaving to them the decision of which approach to adopt. The major difficulty with this strategy is evident in the fragmentation of the final product, which, seen as a whole, does not maximize the collective potential of the contributors. Although the resulting case studies may be of high quality, they tend to "stand on their own." Lack of a common approach increases the chances that case studies will spin in different orbits and will not address each other. Editors are left the tortuous and often tortured task of bringing case studies together, usually under the guise of a concluding, untested "pretheory" or framework to which the contributors do not reply. The strategy adopted in this instance is somewhat different: it is not only to limit the focus but also to start with a common approach - one that develops a public choice perspective within an exchange theory framework. 8 The contributors, each of whom is an experienced comparativist with considerable expertise in particular countries, were asked to address the public choice framework presented in the next chapter and they were invited to explore its utility. In essence, their efforts amount to an approximate test of the framework. It is worth emphasizing that the contributors were asked to address the framework; they were encouraged to reach their own conclusions about the extent to which the framework provides a useful window on the cases of ethnic preference policies with which they are most familiar. There was no strident, and necessarily fruitless, search for unanimity, nor were participants called on to enthusiastically embrace the framework or to swallow it whole and reify it. The essays in this volume represent an assessment of the utility of one approach. Significantly, none of the contributors abandoned it wholesale. Notwithstanding the unusually large constraints placed on them, contributors exhibited a high degree of professionalism and entered into the spirit of the enterprise by offering constructive criticism. Modifications are suggested, areas of agreement stressed, and weaknesses are identified. This, it seems to us, conforms with the notion of an intellectual dialogue. The Western emphasis of most empirical crossnational research probably reflects the greater accessibility and reliability of Western data. But the conceptual advantages of adopting a policy approach apply equally to Western and developing states. The approach fixes attention on a single policy issue as the primary object of analysis and explicitly asks that three kinds of questions be addressed. In this instance they are: First:
What are the origins of policies of ethnic preference? Or, what are the forces that drive them onto the public agenda?
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Second: What do governments hope to achieve through the implementation of such policies? How do they work? Third: Do the policies achieve what is intended? What are the costs of such policies?9 In sum, the first set of questions addresses the causes of policies; the second set calls attention to goalsetting; and the third set identifies the significance of evaluating goal attainment with an eye to policy improvement To take on a policy approach, then, shifts the analytical center of gravity away from the traditional concerns of how, for instance, institutional and constitutional/legal factors "shape" minority relations toward a systematic search for the dynamics that drive policies and affect their chances of success. In a sense, a policy perspective regards institutional and constitutional/legal factors as epiphenomenal except insofar as they have a direct bearing on the origins, implementation, and consequences of the policy in question. But it would be misleading to speak of the policy approach because no single unifying approach prevails. At the level of practical application, policy approaches are middle range analytical guides at best. It is useful, then, to turn to a discussion of the particular approach that serves as a reference point for this volume. The intention is to render more concrete the preceding generalizations about policy perspectives by highlighting some essential elements of the framework that is fully developed in the following chapters. Frameworks have been referred to as a déformation professionelle. Many are stillborn, and most are lifeless, unused because they lack a dynamic ingredient. The framework advanced by Donald Rothchild (Chapter 2) injects a dynamic element at the start by squarely focusing on the idea that ethnic groups have interests. The idea is extended in an important way by the suggestion that ethnic groups can be seen as but one variety of interest group. This connection opens a theoretical gate because explanations of ethnic group behavior are no longer confined to relatively barren land; they are free to roam in the richer pastures of interest group theory. Like other interest groups, ethnic groups can be seen as utility maximizers engaged in exchange relationships with other ethnic groups, exchange relationships wherein each actor seeks greatest advantage in the battle for scarce resources. 10 These initial core ideas are the point of departure from which the framework is developed, but even at this stage, it is evident that the approach has significant theoretical consequences and advantages. The first is that the approach openly acknowledges the relational aspects of intercommunal behavior. This point is congruent with conventional relational conceptions of power. Intercommunal behavior is relational precisely because it involves the expression of power. This premise suggests that the character of the exchanges, like all expressions of power, is affected by the number of
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participants. 1 1 It also implies that what is pertinent to the outcomes of exchanges is the relative, not absolute, distribution of resources and capacities that interest-maximizing ethnic groups can bring into play. 12 A second general advantage of the approach is that it acknowledges that the state is a central actor, not merely a passive bystander or neutral referee, in the exchanges between contending ethnic groups. The state is active not only in the sense that it participates in structuring those exchange relationships, but also in the sense that it, too, has interests not the least of which is a minimal interest in its own continuity. As such, the state requires a measure of public support, even under conditions of limited accountability, in its search for legitimacy. As the contributions to this volume illustrate, these questions can hardly be regarded as secondary. When the principal lines of political conflict revolve around ethnic divisions, the issues of which group control the state and how state authority is exercised, particularly with regard to policies of preference, become crucial. As Rothchild emphasizes, policies are the tangible objects of exchange. A third general point worth emphasizing is, in fact, a response to an anticipated challenge to the approach, to wit: The focus on interests, exchange relationships, and resources of ethnic groups diminishes the significance attached to historical experience. A concern with interests, though, is not fundamentally ahistorical. Indeed, Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, and others have given a clear demonstration of how a historical appreciation of shifting interests, alliances, and discontinuities can provide valuable insights into contemporary exchange relationships. 13 The utility of these insights is not unique to Western states. Rothchild begins with the premise that the historical encounter with colonialism was decisive in shaping the political, social, and economic capacities of ethnic groups in the postcolonial era. Indeed, a comparative reading of the non-African cases presented in this volume (most particularly Premdas, Chapter 7) extends the same general point in suggestive ways. All policy frameworks are guided by the desire to explore policies systematically through a search for the most analytically important dimensions and to identify useful distinctions within those dimensions. Rothchild, drawing from his wide knowledge of African politics, structures a framework around seven basic dimensions. They are (1) identifying patterns of exchange relations; (2) distinguishing between the character of ethnic group demands; (3) specifying the societal conditions that affect the load on the state; (4) specifying a range of outcomes; (5) distinguishing between types of state responses; (6) evaluating alternative decision processes; and, finally, (7) comparatively evaluating nine conflict-regulating strategies. Constructing a framework in one context and applying it to others is a chancy proposition at best; it would be rare for a framework to emerge from that test untouched. But to be valuable, an approach does not have to account for everything. If if
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identifies demonstrably crucial questions, combines the relevant variables in suggestive ways, and thus indicates rewarding avenues of inquiry, it has done its job.
Findings The aim of this chapter was to set the theoretical and methodological stage for the volume by addressing general questions of focus and approach. This concluding section does not restate those questions. Instead, it shifts gears and takes the opportunity to comment on two substantive issues that emerge as recurring themes in the following chapters. The first theme concerns the evident significance of the bureaucracy and of postsecondary education as the institutional sites of preferential policy battles. The second issue returns to the theme of the relationship between the colonial experience and postcolonial policies of ethnic preference. Every contributor to this volume, in particular the chapters authored by Gordon Means (chapter 4) and Charles Kennedy (chapter 3) observes that bureaucracies are intimately involved with policies of preference. Even a brief reflection on why this might generally be the case makes it clear that bureaucracies in developing states experience enormous tensions between demands, expectations, and organizational capacities. To proceed any distance at all toward a credible explanation of these tensions it is necessary to abandon the expectation that these institutions conform to the classical Weberian ideal of what a modern bureaucracy should be. 14 The first point to be made in this context is that bureaucracies are not neutral, and given their responsibility for the direction of state-sponsored development, it may be unreasonable to expect them to be so. Developing states are differentiated from their Western counterparts not only by the fact that the available resources are relatively scarce, but also by the pattern of resource distribution. Typically, the bureaucracies hold a significant proportion of the human, organizational, and other resources essential to the coordinated functioning of political communities. To the extent that the bureaucracy is both a significant resource node (some would say drain) and the principle distributor of resources, it is hardly surprising that the bureaucracy itself becomes an attractive target of the redistributive demands of contending ethnic communities. What is problematic is the extent to which the bureaucracy can be simultaneously an effective instrument of integration and an arena in which preference policies get full play. Part of the explanation for why bureaucracies are not neutral or apolitical is rooted in the colonial experience. It is frequently argued that in the colonial phase, bureaucracies were relatively highly developed—to the extent that in the immediate postcolonial period they stood as one of the few deeply rooted
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structures with a national reach and overarching responsibilities. The fact that bureaucracies are typically surrounded by weak executive, legislative, and judicial political structures at a time when "development" is a national priority has important consequences. "Development" requires the planning, coordination, and execution of strategies. It places a premium on the cohesive organizational capacity of the bureaucracy as well as its reservoir of skill, and thus, it increases the chances of direct bureaucratic involvement in political decisionmaking. At the same time, the extension of bureaucratic involvement into those realms enhances bureaucratic power, often at the expense of the development of executive, legislative, and judicial institutional autonomy. Bureaucracies are an attractive target for contending groups not simply because they are reservoirs of relatively limited resources, but because bureaucracies occupy a crucial place in the power structure and operate across an extended field of activity. It has been argued that the prospect of achieving responsible bureaucratic neutrality is tied to the status position of the higher civil service. 1 5 That status position is improved and bureaucratic efficiency advanced by strict adherence to meritocratic recruitment. The use of ethnic quotas in recruitment, then, actively undermines that status and the neutrality of bureaucracies, if not their efficiency. The use of quotas to gear upward mobility is not limited to the bureaucracy; it extends to the educational system also. To the extent that education provides a gatekeeping function for the middle class, educational quotas operate not only to shape the character of the recruiting pool from which the bureaucracy draws, but also to shape the character of the evolving middle class. Historically, it has been the middle class that acts to limit bureaucratic expansion (see Milne, Chapter 5). The decision to limit the scope of the analysis to those developing states that experienced British colonialism recognized both the significance of the colonial experience and wide variation in European colonial practices. A close reading of the case studies in this volume, and indeed the vast literature on comparative colonialism, reveals profound variance even within British colonial experience. It also indicates significant commonalities. The policy approach structures the search for commonalities through a particular line of questioning. Who are the actors? What are their interests? To what extent and in which areas are the actors' patterns of interests congruent or conflictual? And, how does the distribution of resources contribute to, or constrain interest maximizing strategies? In this context the prevailing interest of the British colonial actor was straightforward: to maintain power in a cost-effective manner. This maintenance was conditioned by such resource constraints as limited manpower and information. The confluence of such interests and constraints led to a consistent set of policies pursued in most arenas of British c o l o n i a l i s m . 1 6 One was to insist on the predominance of the English
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language in administration, a second to favor the recruitment of "generalist" European administrators (for the most part, recent products of English public schools) to staff critical administrative posts. From the perspective of this volume, however, the most important policies concerned the interplay of British interests with the interests of indigenous subjects. Given manpower constraints, the British were forced to recruit large numbers of clerks, soldiers, informants, and collaborators to staff relevant posts within the colonial administration. Ideally, such recruits would be loyal, literate in English, and competent in the relevant sphere of employment. In practice what developed was an expedient recruitment policy wherein British colonial administrators recruited differentially from particular segments of the colonized population. The selection of one group over others (e.g., Tamils in Sri Lanka, see Oberst, Chapter 6) in effect constituted an incipient policy of preference during the colonial phase. Such incipient policies conferred differential advantage to particular groups, improving their status in relationship to other groups. This improved level of status found institutional expression in the bureaucracy. Historically, the bases of such original preference have been diverse, encompassing an ethnic group's geographical proximity to centers of British activities (Bengali, Gujarati, and Tamil preference in pre-1857 India) 17 ; perceived levels of loyalty to British rule (discrimination against Bengalis after 1857 for alleged complicity in the Indian Revolt) 18 ; educational attributes, including but not limited to, knowledge of English (preference for mission school-educated Tamils in Sri Lanka) 1 9 ; physical or racial characteristics (the designation of the so-called "martial races" of northern India—Pathans, Punjabis, and Sikhs) 20 ; and so on. The central question is not whether these distinctions were valid or whether they had anything to do with merit. The important point rather relates to the consequences of these policies—especially how these recruitment practices affected the relative interests and eventually, the capacities of different ethnic communities for sustained collective action. The interests and strategies of the other major actor (the subjects of colonial rule) were structured to a great extent by the presence of the British. From the perspective of utility maximizing groups, the primary goal of indigenous populations confronted with the reality of British rule was to maximally increase relative levels of authority within British administration with the ultimate long range goal of displacing the British. The most important constraints limiting the accomplishment of this end were associated with organizational weaknesses. First, British policy placed restrictions on the expression of political demands and the development of autonomous indigenous political institutions. Second, the bulk of distributional benefits within the colonial system were controlled by the British. Third, the ethnic groups nominated and selected by the British to share in the structures of
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government had little incentive to challenge the font of their benefits. Finally, groups excluded from the interchange (with few exceptions) were imperfectly mobilized to express their interests. Typically, relatively favored groups enjoyed increased levels of authority within British-led bureaucracies. On this issue the interest of the colonists and colonized converged. The British proved eager to minimize administrative costs by devolving authority to indigenous groups, and preferred groups developed an increased stake in the status quo and in developing increased organizational capacities. The exit of the British radically altered the structures of such interests, but significant continuities remained. Indeed, the legacy of colonial policies of preference proved resilient at least in the short term. The newly independent elites continued to utilize political institutions inherited from the colonial period and significantly the bureaucracy retained a considerable measure of esprit de corps in the years immediately following independence. Notwithstanding such continuities, by independence the fairly inchoate ethnic milieu encountered by the British at the outset of their colonial experience had been transformed into environments in which several distinct ethnic groups were mobilized to express their communal demands in the context of incipient nation-states. The capabilities of such ethnic groups varied due to size, relative positional representation in state institutions and organizational capabilities—the latter two factors largely a function of British colonial policy. 21 But most crucial, the departure of the British raised the stakes of interethnic outcomes. In the colonial phase, preferential recruitment practices resulted in the disproportionate representation of members of favored ethnic groups in mid-level civilian and military posts. With independence, they were catapulted to the pinnacle of state power. The resultant dynamics of interethnic competition in the postcolonial environment is structured by the interaction of relatively advantaged and relatively disadvantaged ethnic groups. The former wish to maintain their relative advantage; the latter to redress their relative disadvantage. Typically, in the years immediately following independence, the former translate their positions of relative advantage into policies of ethnic preference conducive to such ends. Policies of preference are adopted which have the net consequence of maintaining favored ethnic group dominance. As our case studies demonstrate (particularly Sri Lanka, Guyana and Pakistan), early postindependence policies have the appearance of success: There is little overt evidence of ethnic group conflict. But such appearances can be deceptive. The period of quiescence is shattered when relatively disadvantaged groups "discover" their relative disadvantage and take steps to redress their grievances. Indeed the lull before the storm may be explained as necessary for the relatively disadvantaged groups to develop some threshold of organizational capacity to enable them to realistically challenge the system maintained by
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the dominant ethnie group. It is this confrontation between organizational near-equals which produces maximal and persistent interethnic conflicts.
Notes 1. For a review see Joel S. Migdal, Peasants, Politics and Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974) esp. chapters 1-3. 2. This, of course, does not mean that there is no utility in comparing policies of preference in "developed" and "less developed" states. See for example Myron Weiner and Mary F. Katzenstein, India's Preferential Policies: Migrants, the Middle Classes and Ethnic Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 136-153. 3. Among the more compelling treatments of this issue are found Fernando Enrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto. Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); and Peter Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979). 4. The seminal study was Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968). 5. J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and the Netherlands East India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). 6. Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970); and Donald Campbell and Julian Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1968). 7. For an overview of these concerns see Sidney Verba, "Some Dilemmas in Comparative Research," World Politics 20 (October 1967): 111-127; and Robert T. Holt and John E. Turner, eds., Methodology of Comparative Research (New York: Free Press, 1970). 8. For a brief review of this approach see Anthony Heath, "Exchange Theory," British Journal of Political Science 1, no. 1 (July 1971): 91-120. 9. For a general discussion of this approach see Arnold Heidenheimer, Hugh Heclo and Carolyn Teich Adams, Comparative Public Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in Europe and America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983); Stuart S. Nagle, Public Policy: Goals, Means, Methods (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984); and B. Guy Peters, "Comparative Public Policy," Policy Studies Review 1 (August 1981): 183-197. 10. A systematic early treatment of this theory is found in Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). 11. An early and still useful treatment of this is found in Thomas C. Schelling, "Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War," Journal of Conflict Resolution 1, no. 1 (March 1957): 19-36. 12. Robert Goodin and John Dryzek, "Rational Participation: The Politics of Relative Power," British Journal of Political Science 10, no. 3 (July 1980): 273-292. 13. See Barrington Moore, Jr., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Land and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston:
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Beacon Press, 1966); and Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton University Press, 1975). 14. For a general discussion see Joseph La Palombara, ed., Bureaucracy and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), esp. chapters 1-2. 15. Fritz Morstein Marx, "The Higher Civil Service as an Action Group in Western Political Development" in ibid., pp. 62-95. 16. Obviously the literature pertaining to British colonialism is vast. A good starting point for the non-specialist is Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), esp. chapters 1-22; and Geoffrey Moorhouse, India Britannica (London: Paladin, 1983). A fascinating approach to British colonial social practices and interactions with subject peoples is provided by Charles Allen's, Tales of the Dark Continent: Images of British Africa in the Twentieth Century (London: McDonald, 1982); and Plain Tales of the Raj (London: McDonald, 1981). 17. See V. Subramaniam, "Coastal Colonialism and the Derivative Middle Class Values as a Cause of Regional and Caste-Tribal Disparities of Representation in India and Africa." Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., September 1982. 18. Wolpert, pp. 233-238. 19. See chapter 6. 20. For instance over one-third of the recruits to the British Indian Army during World War II were Punjabis, Pathans, or Sikhs. Calculated from Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 41-42. 21. For a more detailed comparative analysis of the lasting impact of colonial "domination" of minority groups see Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 147-171.
2 State and Ethnicity in Africa: A Policy Perspective DONALD ROTHCHDLD The applicability of policy analysis to the study of contemporary interethnic conflict in Africa rests upon a recognition that, in part at least, we are dealing with interest-defined groups and elites. It is this stress upon the political, economic, and social interests of categorical groups and their elites within the state, as opposed to their historical loadings or their intangible psychological or cultural "essence,"1 that makes a public choice approach feasible. To the extent that overt, tangible interests—rather than an abstract sense of unique, fixed, and total identities—are involved, ethnic groups can be regarded as utility maximizers who are responsive to the political exchange process. Obviously, concessions essential to a direct or tacit exchange among groups and between these groups and the state becomes extremely difficult where antagonistic rivals view the impact of their exchanges in possibly damaging, zero-sum terms, and such seemingly intractable situations are in evidence the world over (i.e., in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, South Africa). Yet, in many of the less dramatic instances of state-ethnic and interethnic relations (Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan) the moral links and informal norms and understandings necessary to an exchange of interests are in fact present. It therefore becomes possible to contend that "one of the striking characteristics of the present situation is indeed the extent to which we find the ethnic group viewed in terms of interests, as an interest group." 2 This perspective implies a shift in emphasis from the culturally based conflict that frequently marks non-African interethnic encounters to conflict that involves collective struggles in the marketplace for an increased group share of scarce political, economic, and social resources. Politicization occurs as a result of two overlapping factors: the interests of elites and group competition for scarce resources. In either case, the distributional aspect in African ethnicity makes a policy focus, with its stress on social exchange,
15
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increasingly relevant at this time. Where a substantial coincidence occurs between the identity of a cultural or social group and the identity of the administrative unit (i.e., the subregion), a policy framework is especially germane. In an environment of evident scarcity, an approach that links public choice to the configuration of political and economic resources in each African state may contribute to a more rational and constructive state decisional process. Policy analysis concentrates on the alternative courses of action that a state's decision makers may pursue in order to achieve desired politicoeconomic objectives. It combines analysis with prescription and offers partially autonomous state elites practical insights into the range of available options and their anticipated consequences. The aims of policy analysis, as summarized by Warren F. Ilchman and Norman T. Uphoff, are to assess "the comparative efficiency of policy alternatives" and to provide "some means of formulating priorities." 3 To achieve these purposes three main ways of addressing policy issues may be chosen. First, the policy analyst may select an institutional approach and examine the consequences for ethnic groups that follow from the adoption of certain public formulas and rules. Second, the analyst may settle on a costbenefit or cost-effectiveness approach, thereby attempting to relate public expenditures to political system outputs affecting ethnic interest. Or third, the analyst may fix on a political-systems approach and focus broadly on the interaction between state institutions and society. Such a systematic framework for policy analysis subsumes an examination of seven stages of the policy process: the definition of the problem; the assemblage of information; the promotion of policy alternatives; the state elite's choice of alternatives; the implementation of policy; the appraisal of policy effectiveness; and the policy revision or termination. Given constraints on the availability of data, a political-systems framework, with its concern for the dynamic interplay between state and society, currently seems to offer the greatest scope for comprehensive examination of ethnically related policy issues. Even so, the commonality of concerns implicit in these three policy approaches is apparent, and this overlap facilitates an eclectic effort at organizing the available information. In Africa, the modern-day problem of interethnic conflict is very much a product of historical experience. To be sure, variations in natural resources, climate, cultural values, missionary contacts, and proximity of both markets and transportation centers contributed to racial and ethnoregional (the nexus between the subregional unit and ethnic people) disparities. 4 In addition, contextual variables such as the number and size of groups, the distribution of wealth, and the pattern of group recruitment to the economy and polity also affect the nature of the encounter. But no single factor has proven more significant as a cause of uneven development and inequality than the
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experience with colonial overrule. This overrule concentrated administrative, military, communications, trade, and industrial activity on the privileged urban core of what became a relatively advantaged subregion, and thus, imperial power facilitated the growth of central capacity and structured coreperiphery roles and relationships. These disparities, and resulting ethnoregional cleavages, widened noticeably in the later years of colonial overrule. The consolidation of external hegemony brought with it an entrenchment of bureaucratic control, economic dominance, and social and cultural patterns that (consciously or unconsciously) marked off the relatively advantaged urban core from the relatively disadvantaged hinterland periphery. In time, something amounting to a core political culture took hold. 5 The ascendant state elite (largely expatriate, with significant indigenous infusions by the time that selfgovernment approached) felt justified in making authoritative decisions on the allocation of scarce resources to the territory as a whole. The consequences of these decisions, with their adverse impact on the great majority of people living in the less advantaged areas, gave rise to much of today's grave imbalances in the distribution of resources among the racial collectives and subregional units. The somewhat unplanned policies of colonial decision makers seem frequently to have paid little heed to the fundamental and inescapable connections between center and periphery and to have fostered the growth of economically privileged and politically powerful urban cores boasting life-styles only possible when buttressed by a process of asymmetrical ethnoregional exchange. 6 Thus, enclave values and life-styles emerged among the relatively privileged elite of advantaged subregions and linked this cluster of peoples more closely to its counterpart in the metropole than to the relatively disadvantaged in the urban center or the hinterland areas surrounding it.7 The resulting structure of external linkage and unequal interethnic exchange was firmly set in place by the time of the transfer of power to African hands. As a consequence, the structure of interethnic relations has proven to be more and more repugnant to the doctrine of equality put forth by African spokesmen during the years. This antagonism of structure and doctrine poses a major challenge to those engaged in state and nation building, and hence to policy analysts. Clearly, state elites cannot pass onto others the ultimate responsibility for establishing and implementing choice strategies in their own societies. All that the policy analyst can meaningfully contribute to this decision process are recommendations on a framework in which rational, effective, and constructive (morally selfrealizing) choice can take place. But such a contribution is not to be minimized, especially if it points to innovative and life-affirming mechanisms of conflict management (i.e., in the sense of setting out the terms and costs of interaction).
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This chapter contents itself with describing the policy process as it relates to state-ethnic and interethnic relations, leaving to subsequent examination the specific issues of trade-offs between competing objectives and the costs and benefits of particular hegemonial and what I will call "hegemonial exchange" mechanisms. In the latter case, these are decision systems that combine a hierarchically organized one- or no-party system with formal and informal norms and rules allowing for reciprocal behavior (including political exchanges) among state and ethnoregional elites in top executive, legislative, and party institutions. In doing so, ethnoregional (rather than racial) relations are emphasized largely because these are regarded as a more long-standing challenge to state elites engaged in regulating conflict
The Efficacy of a Policy Approach Comprehensiveness both distinguishes policy analysis from other schools and underscores its potential for including the insights of other approaches. In this regard, variations and connections to two major schools of thought (the modernization-penetration and the internal colonial frameworks for analysis) are well worth our attention. In diverse ways these other schools highlight the structural differences and inequalities persisting in coreperiphery relations in developing countries. As descriptions of the ethnoregional and interracial imbalances resulting from Africa's contact with the powerful forces of colonialism, the policy approach can add little to these explorations. What it can do, however, is to go on from where these two schools leave off to examine more fully (1) the relationship between collective demands and public policy outputs and outcomes, (2) the asymmetrical exchange process frequendy in evidence, and (3) the full range of policy options available to state elites for problem-solving actions. As Rajni Kothari declares, "It is necessary . . . to consider and interpret the problem of relationship between center and periphery in a dynamic way, with special attention to the changing character of both the center and the periphery."8 This dynamic aspect, embracing an ongoing and bidirectional or multidirectional encounter, seems all too often ignored in analyses of racial and ethnoregional relationships. In the eyes of the penetrationists, center-periphery contacts essentially involve unidirectional message and power flows from the core to the hinterland. Thus, Gabriel A. Almond refers to "the penetration of the informal and intermittent structures of political communication by the specialized mass media," and Joseph La Palombara asserts that "in its broadest sense, penetration means conformance to public policy enunciated by central government authority." 9 Unlike "modern" societies, center-periphery
State and Ethnicity in Africa
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relations in "transitional" societies, according to the modernizationpenetration school, are marked by problems in establishing an effective central presence throughout the domain of the state. Hence, the "crisis" of center-periphery relations is largely that of inadequate central capacity. For the penetrationists the remedy is therefore clear: Improve the state's capacity to diffuse values to the periphery and the society will move toward a more effective administration of development. Leaving aside the issue of culture-boundedness implicit in this modernizing process, let us concentrate solely on the precision with which this description of message flows conforms to Africa's real-world experience. In Ghana, the economic and political dependence of the hinterland on the center did give rise to some social and cultural penetration, both in the colonial and postcolonial years. John Dunn and A. F. Robertson, for example, see considerable continuity over time in the movement of messages from Accra to Ahafo in the hinterland, resulting in social and cultural change in such activities as education, religion, health, and sanitation. 10 This infusion of central values was only partially effective in penetrating the diffuse networks of the periphery, and then most likely when a process of adaptation took place between central requirements and local culture. In commenting on a sanitation program in Goaso during the colonial period, Dunn and Robertson offer an insightful description of the way central extension of influence and peripheral response interacted with one another: T h e compound of paternalism and anality was hardly likely to establish a commanding sway over the allegiance of the Ahafo population. But the Ahafos have in the event taken from the experience of this five-year colonial sanitary crusade what it was in due course instrumentally convenient for them to have taken. Ahafo today does not exhibit a Scandinavian obsession with the domination of dirt. But in a tropical forest environment which remains recalcitrant to cleanliness, . . . the A h a f o s have kept their environment within levels of pollution which their indigenous culture would scarcely have insisted on but which have in fact made possible a healthier and more agreeable life. 1 1
Therefore, externally inspired efforts to alter behavior patterns proved to be influential to the extent that culturally defined groups in the periphery accommodated and utilized them. The process at work was by no means a unidirectional one, however; in the end the adaptive social and cultural features that allowed for new adjustments after transmission tended to survive. Certainly, we can learn much from the penetrationist analytical construct about the nature of central domination and extraction, the resources and apparatus of state power, and the process of message flows from the center to the periphery. At the same time, we must be on guard against the assumed
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dichotomy between the traditional and the modern as well as the assumed unidirectional nature of message and power flows. In general, the modernization-penetration school suffers, perhaps unconsciously, from a lack of concern with the channeling of messages from the hinterland to the center. Those adopting such an approach presume a need for an extension of central influences and policies outward to the periphery: The more effective the center is in gaining compliance for its regulations, the more likely the territory's success in attaining its modernization objectives. The goals of those adopting a modernization-penetration orientation seem clear, and the challenge they face is reduced to the acquiring of sufficient central capacity to achieve these ends. Not only are largely Eurocentric end values implicit in such a worldview but the proposed means for political development may well prove to be self-defeating. Rather, in real-world African situations an eye to the multisided interactional process is indispensable, not only to achieve a full understanding of what transpires but also to be able to offer a detached assessment on the stages of policy implementation, appraisal, and revision. In contrast with the penetrationists1 optimism about the possibility of transforming the hinterland through a unidirectional flow of authoritative communications and regulations, the internal colonial school takes a decidedly pessimistic view of the chances of transforming the structure of colonialist roles and relationships. Whereas the penetration school assumes that a process of acculturation will follow from the diffusion of core values to the outlying parts, the internal colonialism school does not regard centerperiphery contact as necessarily sociational in its consequences. From an internal colonialist perspective, writes Michael Hechter, "the 'backwardness' of peripheral groups can only be aggravated by a systematic increase in transactions with the core. The peripheral collectivity is seen to be already suffused with exploitative connections to the core, such that it can be deemed to be an internal colony. The core collectivity practices discrimination against the culturally distinct peoples who have been forced onto less accessible inferior lands." 12 Although Hechter does envisage the possibility of central state action to transfer resources from the core to the periphery, 13 in general he sees persistent, even widening, inequality, dependence, and cultural distinctiveness in the relationship between dominant center and subordinate subregions and peoples at the periphery. It is important to note that the observers utilizing an internal colonial approach are a diverse set of analysts and, not surprisingly, come to varied findings on the rigidity of this structure as well as the possibilities for meaningful change. 14 Nevertheless, they tend to be alike in resting their thesis on the class conflicts they find in capitalist relationships. 15 They reach roughly similar conclusions about the salience of cultural distinctness, unequal exchange, and structural dependence in the relation of the periphery to
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the national core as well as to the international metropole. Thus, a dual system of exploitation exists in which the human and material resources of the hinterland are distributed in such a way as to benefit mainly the bourgeoisie of the center and the privileged national core, with only marginal benefits for the periphery. Domestic ethnoregional relations are depicted as analogous to colonialism. Thus, the critical element in a colonial relationship (i.e., the domination of one culturally distinct collectivity by another) is evident in domestic center-periphery contacts. To be sure, this theory recognizes that the elite of the hinterland may be coopted into the ruling class; nevertheless, the system is marked by mechanisms of collective subordination, stereotyping of the relatively disadvantaged collectives, and peripheral underdevelopment. As was true for the penetrationists, the internal colonial theorists depict message flows as unidirectional—from the center to the peripheral parts. The purpose of these communications is essentially exploitative, for the center exercises hegemonic authority in such a way as to extract and distribute scarce resources in terms of dominant core interests. In Africa, such a model conforms aptly to center-periphery relations in the Union of South Africa. In that country, the white center does indeed utilize the paraphernalia of the state to systematize communal control over the other racial groups in its midst as well as the spatially separated Africans confined to homelands or other reserved areas. Nevertheless, the South African experience, with its interrelated policies on separate development and the Bantustans, is something of a special case, more applicable to vertically than to horizontally stratified societies. Present-day egalitarian values represent a fundamental challenge to the validity of such vertically stratified arrangements, fitting more comfortably with societies that decline to rank collectivities on a hierarchical basis. In horizontally stratified societies, as Donald Horowitz points out, "parallel ethnic structures exist, each with its own criteria of stratification." 16 Such equality, in principle at least, between ethnoregional entities does not conform nicely with the structural inequality implicit in the internal colonial model. In these situations, uneven development reflects a broader process of economic development at work and not a systematic exploitation of one ethnoregional section by another. Certainly if anything marks ethnoregional encounters it is the diversity of their resource bases and styles of regulating intergroup relations. Exploitation and oppression of the periphery by the center are not equally present in each situation. Each case must be examined against the backdrop of its own history; to view the situation solely from the standpoint of conflicting class interests is to distort reality. Furthermore, because the internal colonialist theory is unable to specify the relationship between class exploitation and the ethnoregional domination characteristic of internal colonialism, Harold Wolpe has concluded that
22
Donald Rolhchild while the internal colonial thesis purports to rest on class relations of capitalist exploitation, in fact, it treats such relations as residual. That is to say, the conceptualization of class relations, which is present in theory, is accorded little or no role in the analysis of relations of domination and exploitation which are, instead, conceived of as occurring between "racial," "ethnic," and "national" categories. T o this extent, the "internal colonial" thesis c o n v e r g e s the conventional race relations theory (in particular, the theory of plural society), and...suffers from the same analytical limitations as the latter.!'
Clearly, a contradiction exists in the internal colonialist model between a recognition of class differences within the collective and the affirmed presence of distinct, homogeneous racial or ethnoregional groupings in confrontation with one another. Such a contradiction can be solved by minimizing either the conflicts among classes within collectives or the extent of centerperiphery cleavages. Either course, however, would seem to be fundamentally harmful to the neat convergency of ethnicity and class that underlies the internal colonial model. The diversity of ethnoregional encounters also raises some questions regarding the model's accuracy as a description of horizontally stratified societies. For instance, the center may include more than one key urban cluster, the capital city may not be the wealthiest or most powerful locality, and the core may encounter too great a resistance in the autonomous peripheral areas to allow for unrestrained oppression or exploitation. The challenges of Katanga, Eritrea, Biafra, Front for the National Liberation of Chad (FROLINAT), and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) (buttressed by external power) to the unity and integrity of the state symbolize the capacity of the autonomous collective to stand against the impingement of the center. Similarly, Zambia's central government must be cautious in its dealings with relatively advantaged Cooperbelt Province if it is to be in a position to extract sufficient resources for state purposes. If anything, the African state is marked by its fragility and "softness," not by its overbearing nature. Hence, a genuinely descriptive model must adapt to the horizontal stratification of moral equals and not insist in all instances on a dominant-subordinate relationship. Surely, there is a changing, dynamic quality to center-periphery relations that is not reflected in internal colonial analyses. Core areas do not necessarily remain stationary and fixed centers of wealth and power; nor do peripheral regions automatically stay poor and disadvantaged. They shift over time, responding irregularly to changing economic, social, and cultural factors. The emergence of Lagos vis-à-vis Ibadan in the twentieth century may be matched by the rise, in the political and administrative spheres at least, by Abuja in the twenty-first. Canberra, Brasilia, Bonn, and Washington, D.C. are precedents for just such a transition. In Chad,
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moreover, the control over Ndjamena secured by northern Muslim forces led by Goukouni Queddai's army in 1979, and in 1982 by the rival forces of Hissene Habre, represented a reversal in twentieth century north-south relations; the once dominant Sara now became "the stubborn periphery." 18 If it were not for an international political culture that no longer permits the range of "imperial" strategies of state building allowed in the early modern period of European development, a further reversal might well become evident. Libya could conceivably emerge as a potential state-building core, extend its domain southward, and consolidate its hold over an enlarged political community. 19 The appearance of these new centers of power and influence involves a further complication of core-periphery message flows. But what is important to note here is that the direction of messsage flows has never been a uniform and unidirectional process. If a main line of communication linked Ahafo and Accra, this should not blind us to a tridirectional communications process, which also took place in colonial times. Within Ahafo, a significant number of chiefs (the Mimhene and a number of like-minded authorities) retained a strong affinity with Ashanti. By looking to Kumasi "as an alternative intermediate point of communication," these pro-Ashanti chiefs added a complicating, third channel for the movement of messages in Ghana. 20 Obviously, this three-way pattern of message flows contributes an element of irregularity to the process of transmitting messages from the center to the periphery, and vice versa. Yet it is precisely because such a complex organization of message flows corresponds to reality that we gain an appreciation of how numerous and varied are the interacting points of influence in the current African context. Thus, no static and enduring one-to-one relationship between a particular center and a particular periphery adequately describes what, in Africa at least, is a shifting, irregular, and often highly accommodative process. To be aware of very genuine rural-urban or ethnoregional disparities in one period of time is by no means to predict the perpetuation of these inequalities far into the future. Theory must avoid too rigid a determinism and be flexible enough to fit the reality of changing intergroup or interunit capacity, influence, and consciousness if it is to prove an effective explanatory tool for our purposes. In brief, a realistic description of center-periphery encounters must meet at least two critically important tests. First, it must allow for considerable situational variance: What is applicable to Sekou Tour6's Guinea where the center tends to permeate the periphery without permitting effective autonomous response (the abolition of chieftaincy weakened the mobilization of ethnic demands in that country) is hardly relevant to contemporary Ghana where an autonomous local dimension remains a part of an interactional process as variegated as it is complex. Second, such a description, if it is to be accurate, must emphasize the relational nature of power. Modification—
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even transformation—can be anticipated in the years ahead. Patterns of socioeconomic opportunity seem likely to alter: also the way in which elites act to mobilize ethnoregional consciousness or to distribute scarce resources can be expected to wax and wane in response to new values, priorities, and circumstances. Because the course that each center-periphery encounter will take cannot be predetermined in an assured manner, an eye to the dynamic interplay of the encounter itself becomes indispensable to effective interpretation. At this point, a wide range of possible approaches—political psychology, conflict theory, organizational theory, economic trade analysis, and so forth—can contribute to an understanding of the interactional process at hand. We choose policy analysis because of the effective manner in which it brings together the disciplines of political science and economics. By relating societal (and extrasocietal) inputs to decisional outputs made by state elites, the policy framework offers insight into the dynamics of political exchange. In addition, the consequences of policy decisions and implementations are studied, both from the standpoint of state and ethnic group goal achievement as well as systemic coherence (i.e., the regularized patterns of interaction between these centers of power and influence). Although such a comprehensive focus may lack the neatness and clarity of other analytic frameworks, it seems worthy of pursuit because it clarifies the process of political interactions and throws light on public formulas for reducing the intensity of interethnic conflict.
Interethnic Conflict and Policy Analysis Political conflicts among groups and leaders can be expected to emerge where competing collectives seek contradictory outcomes. 21 It is necessary to distinguish at the outset between conflict as a normal, social behavior and conflict as a hostile, and sometimes highly destructive, type of encounter. In the former case, conflict involves the attempt to secure competing interests and can be kept, if the state remains sufficiently responsive to ethnoregional demands, at moderate levels of intensity; the interaction is sociational in that it contributes to group formation, the reaffirmation of group identity, and the maintenance of boundary lines against other groups in the social system. 22 Collaboration on issues of common concern may well lead to mutually beneficial outcomes. The latter case goes beyond the maximization of interests to include feelings of antagonism and resentment. In certain instances, where the state elite is unwilling to implement moderate demands and where the rules regulating interaction are not observed—and are even dismissed—conflict may become unmanageable and perhaps lead to irreconcilable cycles of ideological polarization, terrorism, and
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counterterrorism. 23 Highly intense encounters involving underlying belief systems and values remain ever possible (as in Armenia, Nazi Germany, Zanzibar, Burundi, Rwanda, Algeria, South Africa, Uganda). Yet a comprehensive overview of ethnoregional relations must also focus on the group-preserving as well as the group-destroying functions of conflict. In such a situation the policy analyst appears as something of a divided personality. The detached investigator must be fully attuned to the wide range of alternative policy outcomes present in each interethnic encounter; meanwhile, the problem-solver must endeavor to prescribe rational courses of action. Those utilizing a policy approach, therefore, must engage in openended inquiry while at the same time remaining ever ready to recommend lines of action likely to result in constructive outcomes. If a policy approach to interethnic relations is oriented toward the rational and the life-affirming (Kenneth Kaunda's man-centered perspective), 24 it follows that in the final analysis such a theoretical framework is not entitled to assert its "scientific" merits. Rather, policy analysis seeks comprehensiveness and rational problem-solving—the creation and maintenance of an order in which conflicting interests may establish mutually beneficial relationships, not rigid forms of hierarchy buttressed by the coercive power of the state. Ever realists, the policy analysts dismiss as Utopian the prospect of a world without interethnic conflict. Such a disclaimer leads them to limit the problem for investigation to that of how interethnic conflict can be reduced to, or maintained at, manageable levels by public authorities seeking policies of simultaneous benefits for major interethnic interests. It is to this central problem that we now turn.
Group Demands The extensiveness of the literature on conflict-producing situations makes it necessary for us to concentrate on those factors that affect core processes of hegemony and hegemonial (or coercive) exchange (political exchange that takes place within the hierarchically organized one- or no-party system). Among such general explanations of interethnic conflict are the identity crisis; 25 the communications revolution; 26 social mobilization; 27 and the fragility of political institutions. Obviously each has an environmental impact on the ultimate interactional process. 2 8 But because these explanations lack problem specificity, they cannot serve as full explanations of each conflict situation. Let us focus, then, on the conflict-creating circumstances that tend toward interactions of a hegemonial and hegemonial exchange type. Although each particular ethnic encounter is best understood in terms of its own special nuances, it seems useful to distinguish in a general manner
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between those conflict-producing circumstances that are negotiable and those that are not. Overlaps between these categories are apparent. For example, a disintegrating stratification system or a collective sense of relative deprivation might at times be amenable to symbolic or material exchanges; nevertheless, these examples are classed among the situations contributing to hegemony because of the complex and sometimes precarious negotiating process entailed. Similarly, where negative remembrance or a sense of superiority has an effect on highly visible ethnic group-social class (i.e., Milton M. Gordon's "ethclass") difference, the moral links indispensable to a bargaining relationship may be undercut 2 9 The major conflict-producing situations are grouped according to their processual categories as follows: 1. 2.
3.
General: identity crisis; communications revolution; social mobilization; fragility of political institutions. Hegemony: fear of minority status; negative remembrances and images; sense of superiority; breakdown in stratification patterns; collective sense of relative deprivation; fear of state disintegration. Hegemonial Exchange: ineffective norms of reciprocity; disparities in recruitment; inequitable resource allocations; disproportionate political power; highly visible ethclass differences; lack of adequate constitutional protections.
In general, those conflict-producing situations that give rise to hegemonial interactions are likely to emphasize the subjective side of relations while those likely to occasion hegemonial exchange encounters tend to stress the objective side of relations. The difference between these two types of interactions is useful in determining which conflicts among ethnic groups can be expected to prove negotiable and which intractable, thereby requiring that they be resolved, in part at least, by means of centralized state mechanisms of control and suppression. Journalistic impressions to the contrary, Africa exhibits a wide range of conflict-creating situations, leading both to hegemonial exchange and hegemonial state relationships. Repetitious journalistic accounts of the excesses of hegemonial practices as well as the behavior and attitudes of groups contributing to such practices can obscure a comprehensive view of the highly variegated types of processes at work. One suspects, however, that if cross-national multivariate analysis were to link societies to the variables of ideological and distributional politics, multiethnic societies in Africa would doubtlessly score higher than their European counterparts in the frequency of their emphases on distributional issues. To be sure, scarcity of resources, opportunities, and power by no means account for all conflict among ethnic peoples in Africa. Thus, intense differences, not easily negotiable, occur about issues of group status, particularly where established stratification patterns appear to be crumbling
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(Rwanda, Burundi, Fernando Poo, Zanzibar) 3 0 and where a shift toward majoritarian participation is interpreted as a threat to a dominant minority section (Rwanda, Burundi, Zanzibar, Rhodesia, South Africa). South Africa's Minister of Foreign Affairs Roelof Botha expressed the sentiments of many among the dominant sections in vertically stratified societies: "We cannot negotiate on our own destruction, either now or tomorrow." 31 Not only does status reversal tend to be a nonnegotiable subject, but claims to superiority or moral ascendancy 3 2 and misperception of reality by group opinionmakers (which leads to negative remembrances or images about rival sections of the population) 33 both lack the necessary tangibleness for exchange relationships. In addition, in prerevolutionary Zanzibar a strong sense of comparative deprivation on the part of the African people on that island became a major source of state instability. 34 Although it is essential to remember these subjective sources of conflict, it is important at the same time to keep in mind the objective side of these relationships. The extent to which collective rivalries take place over tangible differences opens up a significant dimension for an effective politics of mutual adjustment. Particularly in horizontally stratified societies, which bring morally equal sections together under an accepted state system, distributional conflicts may come to be of greater moment than those involving ideology, status reversal, or a strong sense of relative deprivation. Thus, scarcity or a disproportional allocation of values—in employment opportunities, high status positions, fiscal resources, or political apportionments—becomes rooted in a sometimes sharp, but still negotiable, conflict among ethnoregional sections. If, in new states, the problem of economic scarcity seems frequently to be intractable, the issues embodied in claims to proportional allocations and recruitment policies lend themselves, within definite limits, to political exchange outcomes. 3 5 Where a sense of moral community exists, political exchange may help to regulate poignant disputes about imbalances of opportunity between relatively advantaged and relatively disadvantaged peoples. In numerous situations (for example, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Benin, Zaire) where slow economic expansion has exacerbated intense ethnoregional competition, the relatively advantaged seek to maintain their privileged position (in occupations, housing, education, amenities, access to decisionmakers) in the face of concerted demands for equal distribution—or redistribution—by the relatively disadvantaged majority. Thus, the great value confrontations of postindependence Africa about need and deprivation in extractive and allocative policies (Nigeria, Sudan, Zaire), 3 6 equity and productiveness in the allocation of scarce economic and fiscal resources (Ghana, Zambia), merit and proportionality in recruitment policies (Kenya, Liberia), 37 central representation in the legislative body based on population or on parity among the subregions (Nigeria), 3 8 and centralization versus
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decentralization of power and responsibilities (Sudan) have all provoked controversy while at the same time remaining open to informal, and even formal, intergroup exchanges. To be sure, the strains resulting from such conflicts cause African leaders to pull back, for the most part, from putting genuine polyarchical systems (i.e., those allowing for open public contestation) into effect; yet even in the absence of competitive party policies, African leaders have managed to develop the means for a creative exchange relationship among the spokesmen for sectional interests. For instance, an analysis of public expenditure patterns during recent years in Nigeria and Kenya shows extensive use of the proportionality principle in these countries. This analysis suggests that dominant political elites in such states are, in certain instances at least, willing to enter into quiet exchanges with elites at the periphery, allocating resources according to the proportionality principle to assure support and compliance for state regulations on the part of ethnoregional elites and people in the hinterland. 39 I have differentiated between the types of conflict-creating situations and indicated how these lead to a further distinction between our core processes of hegemony and hegemonial exchange; it is necessary now to focus on the specific demands that ethnoregional interests make on governments. Such demands inject a dynamic quality into the political process, requiring state elites to set policies that respond to or suppress these claims coming from the domestic (or, at times, the external) environment. Certainly, the task of these decisionmakers is as great as in any time in history. Not only is the period marked by increasing group self-awareness, but the more assertive style these groups have adopted in presenting demands to public authorities makes the task of reconciling legitimate group claims with available political, economic, and social resources a challenge of great dimensions. Even though relatively little systematic research has been done on collective demand patterns in Africa, it seems possible, nonetheless, to distinguish between the types of claims advanced in both hegemonial and hegemonial exchange contexts. Central to this contrast is a distinction between negotiable and nonnegotiable demands. Whereas negotiable demands accept the legitimacy of competing interests and acknowledge the need for mutual gains formulas within the existing state system, their nonnegotiable counterparts perceive their interests in zero-sum terms and, at times, may come to question the validity of the state itself. The implications of this distinction may well be far-reaching. Certainly, where political actors assume demands to be negotiable (and this may vary as the context of each encounter shifts), the possibility of using reconciliatory mechanisms in an effective way seems practicable. However, the impact of nonnegotiable demands on the mechanisms of conflict management is very different. To the extent that the nonnegotiable demand is perceived as fundamentally threatening to state
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viability, it seems likely to provoke a counterreaction aimed at strengthening central control. In the latter situation, institutions become entrenched and thereby deny reciprocity in political relations—at least until such a time as their viability erodes and interest group leaders come to prefer a return to informal or formal norms of exchange. Negotiable and nonnegotiable demands are evident in both horizontally and vertically stratified societies. As might be expected, where moral equality is accepted among ethnoregional actors, demands in horizontally stratified situations tend to cluster around power-sharing, recruitment, and distributional issues, not the more subjective—and more emotionally laden—ones of identity, survival, or status. Moreover, contrary to popular impressions on "rising expectations" in the rural areas, demands in the periphery tend to be minimal, reasonable, and attainable—at least for the present. Thus, surveys administered or processed by this author in Kenya, Zambia, and Ghana revealed that villagers, particularly in the more isolated communities, were the least aware of their disadvantaged condition and made only modest demands on government. 4 0 Those who did communicate their wishes sought such improvements as the building of clinics, roads, and schools as well as programs for adult literacy, community and homecraft centers, and marketing facilities. The 1973 Ghana surveys showed that respondents in the less advantaged subregions were less likely than their more advantaged counterparts to demand a wide range of expensive services or amenities and more likely to prefer central government action and leadership. When asked what they disliked about their present life situation, respondents in relatively deprived Northern and Upper Regions pointed to such immediate dissatisfactions as lack of sanitation, high cost of living, and inadequate law enforcement, not the wide range of expensive and difficult-to-satisfy demands (e.g., hospitals, educational facilities, large markets) sought by their counterparts in the relatively advantaged areas. Thus, the demands made by the people in the neglected parts of the three surveyed countries seemed limited, particularly in light of the uneven development that had worked so manifestly to their disadvantage. Such modest requests on their part open the way—for the time being, at least—to political exchange relationships of an interethnic and stateethnic nature. The margin for political exchange relationships in vertically stratified societies (colonial Kenya, Zambia, Rhodesia) is not nearly so wide. In colonial times, the dominant minority sections in these societies frequently denied the principle of racial equality, and after the transfer of power had taken place, they used their economic power to insist on supportive economic and social policies as the price for their continued participation in the life of these countries. In November 1978 some members of Zambia's small but highly productive expatriate commercial farming community predictably threatened that they would cease their operations or burn down their farms unless the
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Zambian government forced Zimbabwean guerrillas to end their harassment. 41 To the extent that security could be assured, a return to conflict-regulating rules could be expected to ensue and, within these parameters, interestdetermined relationships could again be anticipated. In such circumstances, a process of tacit exchange affecting specific issues seemed likely to take place between African-run state institutions and the spokesmen for the numerically small but economically powerful racial interests. As has been shown for postindependence Kenya, minority racial groups pressed demands on such issues as property rights, citizenship, the allocation of fiscal resources, and the pace for implementing Africanization programs. 42 Such a process of implicit transactions took place in quiet, behind-the-scenes encounters and showed that public authorities were prepared to make concessions (albeit unwritten) as evidence of their backing for the expatriate-dominated business community. The significance of these informal bargains in determining the rules by which public and private authorities can establish and maintain an ordered relationship is not to be underestimated. Yet to argue that the analyst must not overlook the negotiating dimension in contemporary Africa is by no means to keep the presence of powerful nonnegotiable demands in the background. A lack of power dispersion, shared values, or economic or administrative capacity may all contribute to the failure of political exchange relationships and may take the shape of "a dialectic without possibility of synthesis, without possibility of a higher unity." 43 Where the state seeks to consolidate political power in a hierarchically organized governmental or party system or where ethnoregional groups divide over political and economic principles, not interests, it becomes extremely difficult to manage conflict by means of formal rules or informal political exchanges. Hence, antagonistic conflict may emerge between state and ethnoregional actors, leading in extreme cases to irreconcilable division and violence. In horizontally stratified societies, ethnoregional demands for the selfdetermination of territorial units "which themselves originate in arbitrary colonial divisions" 44 (Biafra, Katanga, Eritrea, Southern Sudan) or for irredentist reunifications (Bakongo, Ewe, Greater Somalia) do not readily lend themselves to mutual adjustment procedures. Because self-determination is identified here with the sole outcome of state independence (the external sense) and could lead to the fragmentation of the state itself, these demands necessarily amount to a radical assertion of the rights of internal ethnoregional groups. Certainly, nonstate, ethnoregional collectives have what is tantamount to group rights in certain specified political, economic, and social areas. 45 Nevertheless, a claim to a right of secession involves a more far-reaching demand than those dealing with representation, language laws, the distribution of licenses, recruitment into the army or civil service, or preferences on
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admission to schools and universities. It involves a claim to group survival and must, if it is to be regarded as a valid one, be supported by evidence that a people as a whole lack physical security or the possibility for development within the larger community. 4 6 This is precisely what was argued by Tanzania's Julius Nyerere at the time his government recognized Biafra. For Nyerere, secession "was declared because the Ibo people felt it to be their only defense against extermination." In a truly Lockean statement of the "social contract" between a nonstate people and the state, he contended as follows: Surely when a whole people is rejected by the majority of the state in which they live, they must have the right to life under a different kind of arrangement which does secure their existence. . . . When the machinery of the state, and the powers of the Government, are turned against a whole group of the society on the grounds of racial, tribal, or religious prejudice, then the victims have the right to take back the powers they have surrendered, and to defend themselves. 4 7
In a manner similar to the principles embodied in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, then, secession was not justified by "light and transient causes," but only where the security of an ethnoregional people was fundamentally threatened. Such a "right" to self-determination represents the ultimate in the nonnegotiable demand. When used in an externalist sense, concessions and adjustments no longer suffice, and a breaking of linkages is deemed unavoidable. With rival state and ethnoregional actors irreconcilably opposed, conflict becomes intense and potentially destructive and a shared community seemingly impossible. Certainly, intractable conflict seems built into the vertically stratified society from its very outset. In these situations, the margin for political exchange relationships is always narrow. Because such societies deny egalitarian values and rely essentially on hierarchically organized control to maintain the system, it is not surprising that they become the source of powerful nonnegotiable demands—both from majority racial groups at the bottom of the hierarchy and vulnerable minority elements at the top. Decades of African nationalist struggle against colonial domination and racial oppression attest to the strength of majority African determination to wrest political and economic power from the European colonizer. In Frantz Fanon's words, "the colonial context is characterized by the dichotomy which it imposes upon the whole people." 48 At the time of the struggle, at least, the colonized demanded a transformed world in which they would be assured genuine decolonization: freedom, equality, participation, and so forth. It is precisely because such a broadly conceived decolonization is considered by the dominant minority to be directly threatening to its well-being that the demands of the colonized are generally viewed as repugnant and incompatible. The racial minority's perception of
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threat brings on a reciprocity of nonnegotiation (Algeria, Angola, Mozambique). In a process characterized by Leo Kuper as "ideological escalation," the opposing parties perceive (or misperceive) their situation in terms of antagonistic intergroup conflict. 49 For the dominant minority section, it is assumed that rival interests are fundamentally threatening to the dominant group's physical, cultural, or social survival, making any compromises on its part likely to produce new calls for concessions by determined adversaries. Hence, the minority perceives its realistic choices in terms of two stark alternatives: suppression or exodus. Barry M. Schutz's survey data of white Rhodesian attitudes collected during the relatively calm period of 1968-1969 has shown that this perception of political reality is at work among these dominant racial minorities well in advance of the point of an irreversible decision. Among "middle-level" Rhodesian Front (RF) activists, a large number of respondents looked on 1965 and/or the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) as the "moment of nationhood," indicating, Schutz concludes, "a propensity on the part of the RF respondents to identify nationhood with their own rule." At the same time, 43 percent of this survey group admitted that they had considered leaving Rhodesia prior to 1969; these respondents attributed such ideas mainly to their fears of the return of a liberal (white) government to power or fears of conditions arising that would be conducive to an African political takeover. 50 Although a second survey group, the white residents of a Salisbury municipality, were somewhat less inclined to equate UDI with nationhood and to give the imminence of a liberal white or African-run state as a reason for considering departure from the territory, there remains a link between discontinued European control and their planned departure as well. The European community's demands for political and economic control under these circumstances represents a nonnegotiable form of interaction. In the absence of moral linkage across groups, the European community's "essentialist" perceptions make genuine political exchange relationships extremely difficult and tenuous.
The State's Decision Process How are partially autonomous but by no means disinterested state authorities to cope with these various ethnic demands originating in the environment? As an action agency engaged in allocating values, the state as the institutionalization of public power may pursue three main courses: (1) design significant policy initiatives in its own right; (2) convert demands into public policies; or (3) resist societal demands and delay raising ethnic claims to a level requiring a political response. 51 Although my main concern is with comprehensive choice and the processing of demands, it is important also to
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recognize that many demands are never processed by state authorities, either because they are not pressed with sufficient intensity or because state elites, conscious of their corporate self-interests, block off access channels to these ethnoregional interests. State elites—civilian as well as military—have in various instances effectively resisted the pressures of ethnoregional intermediaries. In addition, they have also proposed political systems designed, in part at least, to depoliticize conflict and obstruct change. In the case of Ghana's 1977 Union Government scheme, the Acheampong regime made a determined effort to create a nonparty representative system whose central objective was to forestall a wide gamut of effective civilian demands on state authorities. 52 A side effect of Ignatius Kutu Acheampong's strategy of purposive depoliticization would clearly have been a reduced sensitivity on the part of the military-led state to the claims of ethnoregional interests. Although these suppressed demands are an important aspect of the social environment and therefore must be taken seriously, my main focus must be on incremental and synoptic kinds of public choices. In either case, state authorities have chosen to define their problem in policy terms and to begin examining and promoting policy alternatives. Thus, irrespective of whether one views the state as manager or controller or, alternatively, with a Marxist or non-Marxist philosophical perspective, it is possible to view the state as inseparably linked to the larger policy process. Certainly, the two concepts of a class state and a partially autonomous state capable of some measure of purposeful action on its own are by no means mutually exclusive. Ralph Miliband, in an important reconstruction of Marx's thought, reconciles them in the following way: "The state is indeed a class state, the state of the 'ruling class.' But it enjoys a high degree of autonomy and independence in the manner of its operation as a class state, and indeed must have that high degree of autonomy and independence if it is to act as a class state." 53 Marxists and non-Marxists can find common ground with regard to the active and partially autonomous role of the state vis-a-vis international and, to a lesser extent, domestic class pressures. Where Marxists and non-Marxists tend to disagree is on the extent to which the class consciousness of the dominant political elite necessarily distorts public policy, particularly in capitalistically oriented countries. Are states and their instrumentalities no more than protagonists of class interests, or can they come to represent a countrywide constituency? As the state elite allocates value authoritatively and implements public policies on economic development and on the regularizing of relations among groups and between these groups and the state, can the dominant political elite be expected, even if only intermittently, to rise above narrow class interests and accept the limitations of communitywide organizing principles? There also is another important dimension to the debate about the state's capacity for meaningful autonomous action. To the extent that the African
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state is a political superstructure having only a limited relationship to the rural productive process, as Goran Hyden contends, 54 then its efforts to transform the nature of production or to modify intergroup relationships may appear as movement without significant consequence. Obviously, states vary enormously in the extent and nature of their active roles on the African scene; nevertheless, in paying heed to the problems of policy implementation, we must take the state's limited capacity fully into consideration in order to gain an appreciation of what claims can be made on the state as well as what demands the state can realistically make on ethnoregional peoples, especially those living in the periphery. At this point, I can begin to probe the ways in which the partially autonomous state converts divergent demands into public policies; in the next section of the chapter, I discuss the state as policy initiator. If at times the state's role as a processor seems more weighty than its role as policy initiator, this reflects the "softness" of state institutions under contemporary African circumstances. Paradoxically, the modern African state is overcentralized and consumes extensive resources, yet is fragile and lacks the ability to carry out its ambitious programs. If this is not the place to examine the causes for the state's softness, 55 it is nonetheless important to note that the impact of such limitations on state initiative is to incline decision elites away from meaningful commitments and toward incrementalist choices largely reflecting the most insistent demands of society and of the state institutions themselves. Let me comment then on comparative decisional methods for coping with the demands advanced by ethnoregional groups. Paralleling and generally related to our categories of nonnegotiable and negotiable demands, we see two basic types of decision processes—hegemony and hegemonial exchange—in evidence in contemporary African states. Hegemony and hegemonial exchange can be distinguished in terms of their interactional processes and consequences. Broadly speaking, hegemonial state systems, which view open conflict as threatening and possibly unmanageable, seek to control conflict from the top downward; hegemonial exchange state systems, which tend to perceive conflict as ubiquitous but manageable, are based on a mutual adjustment of conflicting interests on the part of multiple authorities. The former regulates the various types of ethnic conflict by strengthening the control that authoritative institutions at the center exercise over the subregions; the latter manages conflict by means of reciprocal exchange obligations among state and ethnoregional leaders at the center of the political system. As an ideal type, hegemonial exchange is a form of state-facilitated coordination within the parameters of the single- or no-party arrangement in which a somewhat autonomous central state actor and a number of considerably less autonomous ethnic-based interests engage, on the basis of informally understood norms and rules, in a process of mutual accommodations. Within the partially closed political systems of
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contemporary middle Africa, hegemonial exchange allows for tacit exchanges of interests, frequently applying the proportionality principle in resolving such contentious issues as political coalition formation, political recruitment, resource allocation, and constitutional protections. Hegemonial state systems in Africa are elite-dominated, bureaucratically directed political orders characterized, for the most part, by limited public accountability. The level of mass participation tends to vary according to choice strategies on development and external linkages; 56 those governments (often Marxist) that pursue a "transformation" strategy are more likely than their "accommodation" or "neocolonial" and "reorganization" counterparts to provide forums (albeit controlled) for public expression of grievances and commitments. 57 Although some state-ethnic reciprocity is present in these various hierarchical political orders in the relationship between rulers and ruled, an essential attribute of all such state systems is their potential for low-cost decisions and regulations. 58 Because leaders can often contain the least pressing ethnoregional demands, suppress formal oppositions, and set, but not implement, public policies at relatively low cost, they need invest only limited resources in decisionmaking. This strategy sometimes works to the benefit of these relatively noncompetitive, centrally dominated political systems, for it strengthens their capacity for containing interethnic conflict and for overriding divisive ethnoregional claims. Where the hegemonial state system actually succeeds in isolating and constraining racial and ethnoregional challenges, it is possible to say that the state system performs efficiently (i.e., managing conflict at low cost) although perhaps not effectively (i.e., managing conflict in the best possible way). Hegemony regulates interethnic conflict by controlling and dispersing it, but such a system fails, in some instances, to establish the moral linkages indispensable to an ongoing relationship. In the long run, then, the costs of a hegemonial decision process are not to be underestimated. These costs may include low responsiveness to legitimate group demands, lack of reliable information throughout the system, failure to encourage new local leadership, and a general ineffectiveness in promoting interethnic political exchange and in establishing cooperative procedures for conflict regulation. In brief, the intensity of ethnoregional conflict may make frequent recourse to hegemonially determined decision processes likely (Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Guinea). 59 Yet such approaches are often not sufficiently flexible and alert to the intricacies of political exchange and social interpenetration to create lasting informal norms and rules for the constructive management of conflict. To use Charles Lindblom's apt phrase, as applied originally to command economies, these hegemonial modes of implementation sometimes "look like all thumbs, no
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fingers," although, as he quickly adds, "the thumbs are nevertheless powerful." 60 In contrast, hegemonial exchange state systems allow a broader range for open conflict and collaboration among decisionmakers. Information is more widely shared, the avenues for communicating demands are more readily accessible, and state elites exhibit greater sensitivity to the resource claims put forward by ethnoregional strongmen in the cabinet or party central committee. Political exchange takes place in an environment of heightened public participation on the part of the "politically relevant strata of the population" in intraelite bargaining and intergroup reconciliation. 61 The assumption that interaction will facilitate the growth of a shared community lies at the core of this exchange. Social learning in the form of political experience will, it is hoped, lead to the development of moral linkages among groups and among individuals; this learned relationship will permit a creative process of conflict to occur—at least within bearable limits. By diffusing decisional authority and putting their faith in pragmatic (or nonideologized) politics, hegemonial exchange state systems tend to raise the cost of decisionmaking. 62 The process of hegemonial exchange enables a relatively large number of authorities to participate in efforts to work out mutually acceptable policies. In such a complicated undertaking, where joint movement toward an overarching goal requires concessions by all rival parties, the difficulties of developing informal communications networks and reaching acceptable compromises are evident. Hence, the costs of decision in the negotiation of satisfactory outcomes is likely to prove relatively high. The concessions necessary for agreement place the ethnoregional brokers in a situation of double jeopardy. Not only must such brokers convince their local constituents to give up one value to secure another, but they must repeat this process in their bargaining encounters with their central state-ethnic partners. Provided that the contending ethnoregional intermediaries can accomplish this two-sided task simultaneously, the system is likely to prove effective as well as efficient. In all circumstances, however, the various state-ethnoregional actors can only achieve such an outcome if they are prepared to invest considerably more resources in the decisionmaking process than their hierarchically oriented counterparts are prepared to do. In order to make a hegemonial exchange state system operate effectively in the long term, it is essential that major societal interests compete for scarce resources according to widely understood informal rules of relationship. No doubt the existence of such conditions as relative social equality, high socioeconomic levels, and broad educational opportunities acts to facilitate stable hegemonial exchange relationships, but, as shown by such cases as Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya and Félix Houphouet-Boigny's Ivory Coast, they are not indispensable to decisional processes built on the reconciliation of mutual benefit. Asymmetrical political exchange encounters are always possible—
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provided that the various state-ethnoregional actors perceive their interests to be at least minimally benefited by the relationship. Thus, the concession of subregional autonomy to ethnoregional claimants in the Sudan and Nigeria was in part an attempt to allay minority fears in an effort to promote the unity of the country as a whole. In this situation, the political elite's consensus about systematic rules and procedures proved indispensable to an ongoing bargaining encounter. Hence, the statement made by Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's head of state, at the time he announced a return to party politics, was no mere truism. "From now on," declared Obasanjo, "let the game of politics be played according to the laid-down rules. Let all players be good sportsmen. No matter the result of the competition, let all players remain friendly and without bitterness look forward to another competition." 63 By lending an air of regularity to the political system, such rules, whether formal or informal, reduce uncertainty on the part of various political actors, thereby encouraging exchange practices. 64 In other words, hegemonial exchange state systems recognize and accept the legitimacy of social pluralism. What they attempt to do is to channel conflict arising from diversity of interests along predetermined paths. To be sure, such an organizing principle may involve substantial decision costs for the participants, but so long as the possibility of a mutually advantageous social relationship is in the offing, such costs are considered bearable. Indispensable to this process of channeling conflict is a willingness on the part of key stateethnoregional actors to proceed on the basis of understood procedures. Hence, the way in which demands are presented and then converted by the state's decisionmakers into public policies must conform to the prescribed norms and values of a hegemonial exchange system. As will be evident in a discussion of strategies and policies in the next section, this predisposition for interactions grounded on hegemonial exchange relations is carried over into the organizing principles that state elites seek to apply. In part, public formula strategies would seem to be influenced by the character of public demands. Past experience indeed suggests a link between nonnegotiable demands—hegemonial decision processes—hegemonial instruments for applying nonreciprocal policy on the one hand (Idi Amin's Uganda, Ethiopia, Rhodesia, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Lebanon) and negotiable demands—hegemonial exchange decision processes—exchange mechanisms for reciprocal policy application on the other (Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia, Scotland, Belgium, the Netherlands). Thus, where nonnegotiable demands are made for autonomy and secession by means of military or terrorist actions, the likelihood of hegemonially imposed solutions, particularly on the part of regimes already inclined toward hegemonial decision processes, seems substantial. By contrast, negotiable demands advanced within the system for distributional benefits have a better chance of being
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dealt with by means of political exchange procedures and programs, especially where regimes are predisposed toward hegemonial exchange decision processes. Hegemony and hegemonial exchange can be viewed as "process(es) that form volitions as well as process(es) for making policy respond to them." 6 5 As a consequence, all aspects of the policy process represent interlinked and reinforcing activities and underlie the fragility of such complex relationships as well as accounting in part for their ongoing dynamic.
State Policies for Managing Conflict
The Dimensions of Choice The partially autonomous African state not only resists and processes demands —it also makes demands of its own. Certainly, an evident scarcity of fiscal and institutional resources acts to limit the state's coercive capacity and initiative, particularly in the assemblage of reliable data, the implementing of policy, and the monitoring of results. Yet a constriction on public choice by no means precludes an active role for state elites in defining their problems, promoting policy alternatives, choosing alternatives, revising policy, and, to a lesser extent, undertaking the other stages of the policy process. Thus, even though certain state decisions appear structured by international and domestic forces in the environment, collective choice on rules and processes for managing state-ethnic relations (for example, in resource allocation, coalition formation, and recruitment policies) is still not precluded. Hence, in putting forth a typology of conflict-regulating strategies and implementing policies, I wish to emphasize that state elites in postcolonial Africa can have considerable maneuverability. They are not necessarily limited to neutral roles, merely responding to international and domestic pressures, but can, in certain circumstances at least, be designers, organizers, and movers of policy. As a political class with a vested interest in the state itself, this dominant elite is responsible in part for the expansion of state activity into all spheres of public life. The application of formal and informal rules to guide the political behavior of ethnoregional interests is no exception here. Although broad patterns on hegemony and hegemonial exchange are discernible, I wish nonetheless to avoid a too-restrictive dichotomy and to take note of the many possible combinations and gradations of choice at hand. Both hegemonial and hegemonial exchange systems make use of many of the nine conflict management strategies set out below, with their varying amalgamations of policy instruments. If hegemones have entered into informal reciprocal arrangements with ethnoregional interests, hegemonial exchange systems have not always been loath to impose top-down solutions.
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To note the possibility of such an array of suboptimalized choices is to underscore the range of alternatives at the disposal of state elites for determining relevant formulas and policy packages. To contend, as does one well-informed observer on Malaya's race relations, that conflict in that country "could only be avoided by maintaining colonial rule and a laissez-faire exchange market economy," seems as static and fatalistic as it is circumscribed with regard to choice options. 66 The scope for state leadership —for good or ill—must be fully comprehended for it to be available. Two primary ways of structuring interethnic conflict (i.e., hegemony and hegemonial exchange) and nine strategies for coping with interethnic conflict are set out here. Those strategies normally associated with hegemonic styles of policy application (i.e., subjection, avoidance, isolation, assimilation, displacement) tend to display relatively low levels of political interaction and reciprocity; by contrast, those strategies related for the most part to hegemonial exchange styles of policy application (i.e., sharing, redistribution, protection, buffering) tend to show relatively high levels of political interaction and reciprocity. To be sure, this typology is far from exhaustive. One option, genocide (Amin's Uganda, Burundi, the German campaign against the Hereros and Namas in the early 1900s), has been omitted because, if followed to its logical conclusion, it has the effect of terminating the relationship among groups within the state. Similarly, such forms of encounter as incoherence and transformation have not been included, in part as they lack policy applicability and specificity. Also, in the case of incoherence at least, there is an "absence of any shared forms of tension-management between individuals and groups who stand, nonetheless, in conscious encounter with each other." 67 Clearly, then, the conflict-regulating scheme adopted here inevitably involves intersecting and overlapping features. This necessarily occurs in any dynamic process that brings together different political actors, decision processes, and policy outcomes. However, avoiding overlaps is less central to our purposes than the delineation of the dimensions of choice. Perhaps knowledge about choice opportunities will enable decisionmakers to design specific policies aimed at enlarging the scope for creative conflictual relations. Enlightened public policy consists of more than a desire to reduce the costs of intense and destructive conflict; it also requires an appreciation of the policy options inhering in each situation that will facilitate the development of lasting intergroup linkages. With this in mind, I will now characterize the nine conflict regulating strategies, moving generally from the most explicitly coercive to the least. (1) Subjection. A strategy involving the subjection of one ethnic group by another is the very quintessence of a hegemonial approach. The dominant group exercises sufficient control over the political system to achieve its own
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self-determination irrespective of the countervailing pulls of rival parties at the periphery. Subjection usually suggests a calculation by the dominant actor that the benefits of thoroughgoing control more than outweigh the political, economic, and psychological costs of pursuing such a policy. Pierre L. van den Berghe, emphasizing the structure of relationships in South Africa, virtually excludes meaningful concessions by the dominant political elite: The ruling regime of South Africa is a captive of a system in which a monopoly of political power is a sine qua non of maintenance of those economic privileges of the white working class and petty bourgeoisie, and that is why, however pragmatic, flexible, intelligent, and rational the ruling circles of the Nationalist party might want to be, they simply cannot get away with making substantial concessions. 6 8
Yet even in the South African case, the particular strategy adopted to apply the coercion option has shown a change of emphasis from time to time. If the basic strategy of control has remained constant, the government has shown considerable subtlety in adapting its forms to meet domestic and, especially, international imperatives. 69 Because relationships in a situation of subjection are strikingly unequal and intergroup conflicts often intense, a coercive relationship between groups may be regarded as necessary in order to maintain a structure of inequality. 7 0 Once state elites apply policy instruments to achieve their domination and control, reciprocity between collectives is minimal; genuine power-sharing is precluded; contact is limited and generally circumscribed with ritual; and, partly by design, the responsiveness of the system to public demands is kept at low levels. Although these policy mechanisms frequently reflect the extreme anxieties of minority people in highly exposed and vulnerable situations (South Africa, Burundi, Amin's Uganda), it is not by any means limited to minority domination (Arabs in Zanzibar, Kurds in Iraq and Iran, Arabs in Israel). 71 To be sure, policies of ethnic subjection may allow for participation within the dominant section or sections, even while refusing equivalent rights to the oppressed elements of the population (e.g., South Africa's parliamentary elections); however, such an asymmetrical pattern of group rights does no violence to the principle of ethnic domination as outlined here. So long as the government uses its coercive powers to freeze intergroup inequity in place, the existence of a delimited sphere for public contestation within the dominant group or groups only reinforces the stability of the political system by lending it a specious air of semilegitimacy. (2) Isolation. Whereas avoidance assumes a relatively cohesive political community in the country as a whole, a strategy of isolation is pursued on
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the premise that ethnoregional and racial collectives within the same state lack shared interests, goals, and values. Ties to the larger community are not accepted as legitimate, primary political loyalties being directed to the subcommunity, not to the larger society. Isolation is manifest in such institutionalized relationships as de facto partition (Cyprus, Ireland, Lebanon) and attempted secession (Biafra, Eritrea, Katanga, and the Kurds of Iraq and Iran). However, once isolation is carried to its logical conclusion and two sovereign states emerge and are recognized as legitimate (Pakistan/ Bangladesh), then the encounter is transformed into a new type of relationship. Where isolation does persist within the state, ethnoregional leaders, irrespective of their majority status, regard conflict as intense and potentially destructive. They therefore seek, by coercive means if necessary, to reduce conflict by separating the contending groups into distinct political systems, each of which then possesses a decisional capacity over certain specified activities in its own right. For John de St. Jorre, partition is one conceivable scenario that may materialize in South Africa. "Partition in closely interwoven societies," he writes, . . . is n e v e r thought p o s s i b l e until it happens, for the s i m p l e reason that it is invariably the result of civil war. N o o n e wants it ideally, n o one really accepts it, but it finally occurs b e c a u s e neither side can defeat the other and the alternative is e n d l e s s bloodshed. . . . Partition w i l l , of c o u r s e , m e a n disruption, s a c r i f i c e , a harder l i f e for the Afrikaner tribe in a much smaller state. B u t that is the price they will h a v e to p a y for their e t h n i c e x c l u s i v e n e s s , f o r their c o n t i n u e d e x i s t e n c e in A f r i c a . 7 ^
Because of the drastic nature of such separations, a two-sided form of hegemonial interaction, often involving elements of force and coercion, seems well nigh inevitable during the period of de-linkage. Provided the process of separation is not too destructive, however, new types of relationships between separate and distinct identities are not precluded in the years to follow. (3) Cultural Assimilation. Regimes pursuing a strategy of cultural assimilation employ the power of the state to interpenetrate and absorb politically weaker identities into a dominant core culture. Such regimes can be controlled by a numerically preponderant collectivity or collectivities (Sudan) or by a powerful minority people (the American-Liberian people of Liberia), but in either case a similar impulse toward cultural expansion and incorporation is evident. To be sure, a subtle process of "unconscious assimilation" marks many interethnic encounters; 7 3 while not unmindful of this process, this essay focuses on cultural assimilation as a conscious choice strategy on the part of a state's decisionmakers. It is their effort to take
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deliberate steps to promote core cultures, values, attitudes, and aspirations on a nationwide basis that is of primary concern in this context. Surely there is a positive, egalitarian dimension to an assimilationist strategy. 74 Nigeria's national service system of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which required every university graduate to serve for a year in a subregion other than his or her own, used state authority as a means of promoting a more united country. Moreover, because the dominant collectivity controls the educational system, it disperses the national language, thereby assuring that the members of all groups are equipped to enter into market exchanges and to compete for skilled positions in the public and private sectors. Full and free ethnoregional representation also requires an extensive facility with the lingua franca, or, as Uganda's former president Milton Obote has warned, whole peoples risk possible isolation from proceedings in the central legislative body that affect them in a fundamental manner. 75 Yet despite these positive aspects, the attempt to mold a relatively uniform national culture and worldview nevertheless entails some potentially heavy costs. Because cultural assimilationist policies use state power to compel the relinquishment of certain cultural traits, they inevitably involve an element of linguistic, religious, and/or value suppression; not surprisingly, such suppression evokes a strong emotional response by politically peripheral peoples. The concern of French-speaking African intellectuals in colonial times with negritude was in part a reaction to France's overbearing assimilationist policies. 76 Outside of Africa, Quebec's René Lévesque has responded in a similar manner to what he views as AngloSaxon assimilationist pressures in Canada. 77 In postcolonial Africa, this dialectic of assimilation-resistance continues to be of considerable relevance. Various regime policies of " Arabization" and "Islamization" in the Sudan have provoked a bitter reaction on the part of the culturally and ethnically distinct peoples of the South. 78 Oliver Albino, describing Southern Sudanese fears in this regard, remarks that these differences are taken by the Muslim North as "imperialist influence" calculated to breed hatred between the Arabs and the Africans. Such an attitude and open intolerance by the ruling North makes social harmony impossible. On the contrary, an infamous piece of legislation known as the Missionary Societies Act, 1962, was enacted in order to eradicate Christianity and ensure the spread of Islam.
It is significant that as the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 allowed for a measure of relief from these assimilationist pressures [Appendix A(6) gave minority groups guarantees on freedom of religion, conscience, language, and culture], destructive tensions between North and South eased temporarily; however, as Sharia was applied to the whole country in 1983 and Arabic was
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"emphasized" in southern schools, "at the expense . . . of English and local languages," guerrilla forces in the South mounted military attacks against the Sudanese state.80 In Liberia, assimilationist pressures have been in evidence since 1847 when the freed blacks achieved independence status,. The Americo-Liberian population, about 1.5 percent of the total population of the country, automatically secured citizenship until 1944, while the remaining indigenous inhabitants were granted citizenship as they showed themselves to be "civilized." Civilization, which involved the adoption of Western life-styles, the practice of Christianity, and the demonstrated ability to read and write English, was facilitated by participation in an apprenticeship program sponsored by Americo-Liberian commercial or trading institutions or by attending the formal school system. Certainly the way to proven success within the political system lay essentially through acquiring a Western education and life-style. In 1944, citizenship was granted to all the inhabitants of Liberia and participation in government was extended to leaders from hinterland areas. However, assimilationist impulses became stronger, despite apparent misgivings in the periphery, as the core culture had gained an ascendancy over the economic and political centers of the society. 81 As one ambitious young man expressed his dilemma over assimilation: Before you will be known by Liberians you should be a member of Civilized Society. For this reason if I go to church I always ask in my daily prayer "Hear me crying, oh God, give ear unto my prayer, when my heart is in heaviness. O set me free upon the Rock which is higher than I, for me to see a sort of work during time I shall appear before President of Liberia W. V. S. Tubman." 8 2
For this young man, the assimilation-resistance dialogue was internalized. (4) Avoidance. In pursuing a strategy of avoidance, decisionmakers use the state's coercive powers to restrain direct interethnic conflict. It is precisely because they consider open group struggles to be so gravely threatening that these decision elites seek to protect the political system through the circumscribing and containing of conflict. Such a process of enclosure finds expression in various institutional forms: militarybureaucratic rule, the single-party system, the no-party state, regulations outlawing tribally based party organizations, and so forth. These mechanisms of avoidance tend toward a similar outcome—the insulation of the state and its institutions from the free communication of ethnic interest demands. The state elites, receiving only such messages as they are prepared to entertain and hammering out decisions on sensitive issues in closed meetings, are inclined to reduce troublesome conflict-producing issues to a minimum. The
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boundaries they place on ethnic interest encounters represent a purposive effort to avoid the disintegration of the political system. 8 3 For example, prior to the initiation of Sierra Leone's one-party constitution in 1978, President Siaka Stevens declared that such a hegemonial approach was essential "if the country is not to disintegrate into tribal factions, with all that would imply." 8 4 For the proponents of no-party government in Ghana and Afghanistan, the elimination of partisan contestation was a means to reduce the harmful divisiveness caused by openly expressed interethnic conflict. 8 5 Thus, a full awareness of the fragility of the state led numerous African leaders to attempt circumscribing the legitimate arena of politics, even though such a move could impede the process of social learning and thwart the establishment of firm intergroup linkages in the future. (5) Displacement. A strategy of displacement is limited to efforts on the part of state authorities to transfer an ethnic population permanendy from one locale to another in order to transform the nature of the intergroup encounter. 8 6 The transfer can be to a place inside or outside the country. In this respect, the flight of many of the Fulbe from Sekou Toure's Guinea is not included under this rubric as population transfer was not a consequence of a calculated decision by state leaders. Because such a strategy often involves a state-imposed "solution" to the nationalities problem, a hegemonial approach is usually entailed. However, within the rubric of displacement, a variety of policy instruments have been in evidence. Thus, displacement has been applied on frequent occasions to small urban enclaves (South Africa's Group Areas Act); imposed upon entire nationality groups (USSR); taken the form of local regroupment (Lebanon, Cyprus, Algeria, Palestinian Arabs from Israeli territory, Jews from Ethiopia and from Arab countries); implied assisted repatriation (immigrant workers in Western Europe, nonwhites in the United Kingdom); appeared as disguised or undisguised expulsion (Chinese refugees from Vietnam, 87 Biharis in Bangladesh, Moors and Jews from Spain, Asians in Uganda); and involved formal exchanges of populations across state lines (Greece and Turkey following World War I). Although an element of state coercion is common to many of these policies, it is nonetheless important to note that political exchange relationships can be present where leaders pursue a displacement strategy. Under an agreement negotiated in 1975 between Bonn and Warsaw, 7,047 ethnic Germans living in Poland's western territories have been permitted to rejoin their relatives in West Germany in the period from 1 January 1976 to 31 July 1977. In exchange for a Polish pledge to allow 125,000 Germans to transfer to the Federal Republic in the four years after the agreement, the German government agreed to make a payment of DM 1,300 million to cover pension and accident insurance claims and to provide a long-term loan of DM 1,000 million. In addition, talks have been held between West German and
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Soviet authorities regarding the sensitive question of repatriating some 2 million ethnic Germans living in the USSR 8 8 On the equally sensitive issue of Jewish emigration from the USSR, Soviet authorities have bridled at any attempt to link the exit of Soviet Jews with U. S. trade pressures (in particular, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974). 89 Nevertheless, in something of a tacit bargain, Moscow has allowed a significant outflow of Soviet Jews to take place during critical junctures in Soviet-U. S. relations (i.e., the talks on SALT II in 1978). As of July 1980, nearly 240,000 of an estimated 2 million Soviet Jews had been permitted to leave the country since emigration began in the late 1960s. Finally, one might point to two agreements negotiated between the governments of India and Sri Lanka under which 600,000 Indian Tamil laborers are to be repatriated to India in years to come, while a remaining 600,000 are to be readmitted to Sri Lankan citizenship. 9 0 Because displacement involves this element of bargaining, it is considered the closest of all the hegemonial approaches to political exchange-type interactions. (6) Buffering. Where the norms of formalized competition and reciprocity are lacking, the contesting sides can use third-party intermediaries to organize the rules for social interaction. In such situations, interethnic conflict is normally intense and political exchange relations are indirect and intermittent. Because the rules for regulating such conflict tend to be insufficiently determined, the rivals come separately to a decision to make use of an internal or external third-party intermediary to find a minimally satisfactory agreement. As such, a strategy of buffering takes a variety of forms: good offices, conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. Buffering was commonplace at the time of decolonization in middle Africa. Once the colonial authority became intent on ending its political overrule in these territories, it made an effort to reconcile conflicting ethnoregional and racial interests prior to granting self-government. In Uganda and Kenya, for example, this led to a belated attempt to promote coalition government and quasi-federal constitutional relations. 91 In Namibia, however, the presence of very contradictory demands and preconditions on all sides has made efforts at external buffering more complex and, in the immediate term at least, less successful. 92 Clearly, buffering can only be effective in managing interethnic conflict where the rival parties are prepared to search for mutually beneficial terms and an acceptable intermediary is willing to undertake the often thankless task of conciliation, mediation, or arbitration. The various spokesmen must bargain within their communities for the right to represent their respective groups at the interethnic bargaining table as well as between one another. The complexity of such a process is shown by the protracted effort to hammer out a settlement of the Namibian dispute, for even with the Lusaka meeting of
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May 1984, cochaired by Zambia's president Kenneth Kaunda and South Africa's administrator general in Namibia, Willem Van Niekerk, the MultiParty Conference and Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO) representatives found themselves deadlocked over the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 435. Outstanding examples of effective mediation occurred, however, in Zimbabwe and the Sudan. In the former case, Britain's efforts to mediate the dispute received critical support from the frontline states, which pressed the Patriotic Front to negotiate a settlement of political issues at the Lancaster House conference in 1979. 93 In the latter case, a representative of the World Council of Churches chaired successful talks between the Sudanese government and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement The uniqueness of this achievement, which led ultimately to the Addis Ababa agreement of 1972, is apparent in light of the difficulty of persuading the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) to assume an intermediary's role in the internal disputes of member states (Eritrea, Biafra). (7) Protection. Where public authorities put policies of group protection into effect, hegemonial exchange relations are direct but intermittent. The core retains unequal political power in relationship to the periphery; however, at its discretion, the core may decide to grant legal and constitutional protections to peripheral groups. Although external actors have pressed for minority guarantees, the decision to make these safeguards a meaningful feature of state policy is ultimately one for state elites themselves. As such, legal protections represent a relatively direct (albeit unequal) form of hegemonial exchange between core and periphery. Here, as before, it is important to distinguish between the protective policies of colonial and postcolonial regimes. At the time of the transfer of power, the outgoing metropolitan powers frequently extracted minority protections from the newly established African governments as the price of further progress toward political self-government and independence (Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe). 94 Many of these hastily erected guarantees were soon dismantled after independence, and the regimes in power largely shunned further external actor participation in their internal affairs. From this time forward the issue of legal safeguards became matters of domestic predispositon and policy. Some regimes, accommodationist (neocolonial) and transformationist alike, have steadfastly refused to incorporate fundamental rights guarantees in their basic laws. 95 Others have variously inserted protections for individual and group rights into their basic laws, providing for linguistic, electoral, legal, educational, and cultural safeguards. For example, bilingualism has been official government policy in the Cameroun, despite a move to a unitary system of government in 1972; moreover, the Federal Nigerian Constitution of 1979 granted all persons an extensive list of fundamental rights, subject, of course, to qualifications based
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on defense, public safety, and public morality requirements. Particularly significant for our purposes was a right to freedom from discrimination under the Nigerian constitution. Thus, Article 39 (1) provided: A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion, or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person— (a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or adminstrative action of the government to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria or other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions, or political opinions are not made subject; or (b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria, of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political o p i n i o n s . 9 6
As shown by this carefully drawn constitutional provision as well as by specific provisions on ensuring the country's "federal character" in making appointments to decisionmaking bodies, the Nigerian state was moving deliberately toward the entrenchment of specific individual and collective rights in its basic law. This represented a significant concession on the part of the state elite, which recognized the link between the reassurance of basic ethnoregional interests in the constitution and the stability of the state itself. (8) Redistribution. Whereas a strategy of protection instills confidence among the politically disadvantaged by assuring them political, economic, and social rights, that of redistribution represents a more substantial commitment on the part of the relatively advantaged. Redistribution goes beyond concession and suggests a genuine exchange, direct or tacit, between significant domestic political actors: The less advantaged gain much-needed economic resources in exchange for their support and compliance with regime regulations. In middle Africa, such countries as Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, and Tanzania have variously allocated substantial resources to the less advantaged subregions for the purposes of economic development, national integration, and regime support. The policy mechanisms used to alter the existing pattern of system allocations include the following: fiscal redistribution (Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania, Nigeria), informal and formal quotas on public service recruitment and scholarships (Nigeria, Malawi, Burundi, Kenya), preferences in distributing contracts (Zambia), siting of industries in the less advantaged areas, and special training and capital assistance programs (Kenya). In all such instances, administrative incentives and controls are instituted that effect a more even distribution of interethnic opportunities. Under conditions of
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overriding economic scarcity, the scope for redistributive programs is necessarily limited; even so, recently published data from Nigeria and Kenya indicate a greater tendency to use the proportional (and, in some cases, the extraproportional) principle than in the past. The index of variation decreased with respect to Nigeria's road programs during the period from 1975-1976 to 1979-1980 from 1.18 to 0.48, while that country's health program showed a decline in the index of variation from .70 to .51. In Kenya during the 19741975 to 1982-1983 period, the hospital programs index decreased from 1.01 to .89 and the education programs from .53 to .45.97 Such allocative policies suggest a kind of informal hegemonial exchange process at work, which augurs well for constructive conflict relations among state and ethnoregional interests. Although African countries have not as yet approximated Pakistan's or Malaysia's comprehensive application of preference systems for recruitment to educational institutions and to central, subregional and parastatal organizations, they have taken some initiatives to ensure a more representative selection and admissions process. 9 8 Nigeria's 1979 constitution included provisions on the "federal character" of the federal civil service and the appointment to federal political and adminstrative positions. The aim was to promote national unity by "ensuring that there should be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies" [Sect. 14(3)], and the federal government took steps to comply with the spirit of this provision by including representatives from all states in the federal cabinet. The federal government also acted to set quotas for admission to federal universities and to allocate postgraduate scholarships on a proportional, if not an extraproportional, basis. Its achievements in the latter area are plain to see. Whereas 33.2 percent of the applicants from the eleven states in the federation designated as disadvantaged by the former federal military government (and 46.2 percent in the nine disadvantaged states in the north) received postgraduate awards in the 1980/81 year, only 21.5 percent of those applying from the eight relatively advantaged states were given scholarships. This inclination toward corrective equity was even more apparent in the following year, as 60.9 percent of the applicants from the nine disadvantaged northern states received scholarship awards.99 What is less fully appreciated is the continuation of support by the Nigerian military, following its December 31, 1983, coup d'état, for the guideline on "federal character" in central appointments. Upon seizing power, the administration of Major General Mohammed Buhari appointed an eighteen-member federal executive council that included a member from every state except Bendel, and that state was compensated by the selection of a person from the subregion as head of the civil service. 100 The policy of balanced recruitment of subregional interests was abandoned, however,
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following Major General Ibrahim Babangida's coup d'état of August 27,1985; his expanded cabinet, heavily weighted with military officers, included two or more members from Plateau, Niger, Oyo, and Ogun states, while leaving Ondo and Bauchi states unrepresented. 101 Other African countries reflecting a geographical balance in high level political appointments range across a continuum from Kenya's, the Ivory Coast's, and Cameroun's hegemonial exchange system to former president Sékou Touré's tight one-party hegemony in Guinea. Unofficial practices of proportionality also have been apparent, moreover, in civil service recruitment experiences in Ghana, Malawi, and various other sub-Saharan countries. In these situations, the soft African state has made a virtue of political necessity. It has frequently responded to the reality of powerful ethnoregional demands for inclusiveness and for fairness in allocations by opting for the seemingly disinterested standard of proportionality. As proportional and extraproportional guidelines are invoked and minority ethnic peoples and relatively disadvantaged subregions see an increase in their opportunities, the effect of programs based on these principles may be positive in terms of improved interethnic relations. The gap between the relatively disadvantaged and relatively advantaged may narrow somewhat, leading, by stages, toward greater economic, political, and social interdependence. Positive memories of the core group or groups may develop as redistributive programs are implemented sensitively. Nevertheless, the difficulties in carrying redistribution through to its logical conclusion (i.e., substantial equality among ethnic identity groups and subregions) are unwisely minimized. Not only do programs of redistribution encounter resistance from entrenched ethnic and class interests determined to hold onto their privileges, 1 0 2 but such programs may also encounter increasing opposition on other grounds: that they make ethnic allegiance more salient in the political process and heighten intraethnic group antagonisms along class lines. Moreover, should the expectations of the relatively disadvantaged outpace the willingness or the ability of the relatively advantaged to reallocate significant benefits—a reaction that might be described as redistrubtor fatigue —redistribution might come to epitomize tokensim or an empty policy ritual for all but the tiny upper middle class elite affected by its provisions. In this event, redistribution, as an alteration in the rules of relationships, could result in increased interethnic tensions. (9) Sharing. Power-sharing policies, the quintessence of a hegemonial exchange approach, tend only to be relevant in situations where levels of interethnic conflict remain distincdy moderate. Differences are reconcilable in these circumstances, for competition is largely limited to distributional concerns and not usually extended to include matters of basic belief and principle. Nevertheless, the salience of ethnic pluralism requires a continuing
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effort on the part of decision elites to ensure that demands do not escalate and that systemic norms of relationship are followed. At heart, the politics of sharing involves a fine-tuned process of feedback geared to the regularizing of reciprocity among groups. By comparison with protection and redistribution, sharing strategies bring relatively equal parties into the political exchange process. In addition, sharing goes beyond the protection of rights and the redistribution of economic resources; it includes group spokesmen in the key area of political decisionmaking. Even within the parameters of the one- or no-party system, state and ethnoregional actors can enter into informal exchange relationships because they are linked together by well-understood and predictable ties of reciprocity. Such hegemonial exchange models of conflict management avoid adversarial behavior and, instead, channel group interactions along controlled yet cooperative lines. To be sure, ethnoregional strongmen in the cabinet or party national executive continue to strive for the maximization of group interests; however, these encapsulated power struggles tend to be reduced in intensity by the controls placed on public information and by the sense of shared interests emerging over time within the politically dominant class. By quietly agreeing to informal principles of proportionality on such critical issues as coalition formation, elite recruitment, and resource allocation, these state and ethnoregional actors are able to work out informal norms among themselves that, temporarily at least, promote conciliatory behavior under conditions of economic scarcity. In a more formal sense, this emphsis on joint intergroup participation in the decisional process can also find expression in a variety of policy instruments: executive power-sharing (Nigeria), parliamentary coalitions (Nigeria, Kenya), mutual vetoes (Zimbabwe), regional autonomy (Sudan), and devolution (Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania). Common to all these informal and formal manifestations of sharing is a dynamic process of mutual adjustment. The ethnoregional rivals preserve their separate identities while at the same time cooperating in the search for mutually beneficial outcomes. Provided that group interests overlap and learned social relations have developed, social pluralism does not act as a bar to stable, reconciliational politics.
Further Lines for Policy Research An examination of the nine strategies for managing interethnic conflict presented above reveals much about the range of choices open to state authorities. However, it tells us little about two related issues: the consequences of choice and the ways of reducing the intensity of conflict. Although these must remain topics for subsequent treatment, it is important
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to note here the possible contribution that policy analysis can make to these questions. In an abstract sense, the termination of interethnic conflict is not really a problem at all. As Adolf Hitler demonstrated so dramatically, "final solutions" end domestic interethnic conflicts grimly but decisively. Hence, our challenge is not the elimination of conflict irrespective of cost considerations, but the minimization of destructive encounters between ethnoregional sections. Once feasible policy options are fully understood, the logical next step would seem to be the determination of the costs and benefits resulting from the application of these alternatives. This is not a simple task. In real-world situations, every policymaker finds his or her choices conditioned by the environment and by the nature of the demand process. The policymaker is not free in practice to choose as he or she might wish from among the nine conflict management strategies. Even so, within the parameters of choice, the policymaker can formulate a calculus of likely qualitative costs and benefits attendant to each line of action and then design a policy package that will best reconcile the competing objectives put forth by various interests. In doing so, conflicting claims, values, and objectives must be accommodated. The policymaker may also find that a choice has to be made between the short-term costs and benefits these policies may entail with respect to legitimacy engineering. 103 Inevitably he or she will find that such variables as economic performance, external manipulations, group aspirations, and positive and negative ethnic remembrances and images are part of the policymaking equation. The results of all this in terms of optimal decisionmaking are no doubt less than completely satisfactory. This is not to cast doubts on the usefulness of setting out priorities and qualitative cost-benefit calculations on the management of interethnic conflict. Information and planning can certainly open up new vistas as to choice opportunities. At the same time, however, it is necesssary to be fully cognizant of the limits of a policy approach. The policy analyst can indeed point the way to improved choices on regulating and redirecting interethnic conflict, but the political actor must remain responsible for the ultimate decisions affecting the course of ethnic interactions in his or her society. Intertwined with an analysis, broadly conceived, of the costs or benefits of policies is a focus on the prescription of procedures for minimizing interethnic conflict. What recommendations can policy analysts make to promote constructive relations among groups? To be sure, the policy analyst is only equipped to provide a part of the answer to this complex question. Nevertheless, a study of the costs and benefits of alternative courses of state action can offer clues as to each course's likely program-aggravating or problem-solving impact. Certainly, a stress on learning through feedback is indispensable to the life of the political system. The inability of policies to
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achieve desired objectives ought to be taken as a signal of inadequate performance and lead, in turn, to a creative search for ways of restructuring the interrelationships among competing groups. For example, where the state's refusal to negotiate at a time when demands are reasonable results in ethnoregional violence, a more reconciliational approach may reduce tensions and make the conflict more manageable. Moreover, if the effect of nonnegotiable demands is to complicate the management of group tensions by providing a negative information flow, then the inability of the system to function as desired should act as a sign to group actors that more moderate demands are indispensable to reciprocity among groups. The inability to establish learned interactional relationships among rival sections may be traceable to the hegemonial decision process itself. Low decision costs associated with hegemonial approaches to decisionmaking may be secured at too high a price in social learning; on the other hand, in certain instances, political leaders may conclude from experience that the high decision costs associated with a hegemonial exchange approach, desirable as the approach may be in promoting interethnic reciprocity, may prove too costly in terms of the competing objective of economic productiveness or decisive central leadership. New problemsolving efforts based on feedback information will not always lead to greater responsiveness on the part of state elites, for the existence of multiple objectives assures, if anything, a constant reassessment of public formulas in order to achieve redefined ends. What a policy emphasis can offer here—and it is necessarily limited by the nature of its orientation to those decisionmakers and policy analysts thinking in terms of rational and constructive calculations—is a more comprehensive view of the interlinked process as a whole. Where such decisionmakers and analysts are intent on improved performance, this broadbased, and hopefully sensitized approach, may advance new and useful insights into the means of reducing the intensity of interethnic conflicts. To emphasize the qualitative character of many of these judgments is in no way to detract from their significance. In describing policy analysis as the creation and crafting of problems worth solving, Aaron Wildavsky comments most aptly: In d i s c o v e r y , analysis as p r o b l e m s o l v i n g is more art than craft, more f i n d i n g n e w w a y s than p e r s u a d i n g others o f their f e a s i b i l i t y and desirability. In justification, analysis is more craft than art. N o t that I p r e f e r o n e to the other. W i t h o u t art, a n a l y s i s is d o o m e d to repetition; w i t h o u t craft, analysis is unpersuasive. S h i f t i n g the frame o f discourse, so that d i f f e r e n t facts b e c o m e persuasive, s u g g e s t s that art and craft are i n t e r d e p e n d e n t . 1 0 4
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Notes T h i s essay is an updated and extended version of "Inter-ethnic Conflict and Policy Analysis in Africa," Ethnic and Racial Studies 9 no. 1 (January 1986). I w i s h to thank the editor, Dr. J o h n Stone, and the publisher, R o u t l e d g e & K e g a n Paul P L C , for allowing m e to r e u s e these materials. I also wish to e x p r e s s my appreciation to P r o f e s s o r s M a u r e G o l d s c h m i d t , D o v R o n e n , Ian Lustick, and Ole Holsti for c o m m e n t s on an earlier draft of this essay. 1. W a l k e r C o n n o r , " N a t i o n - B u i l d i n g or N a t i o n - D e s t r o y i n g ? " World Politics 24, no. 3 (April 1972): 3 3 7 ; and his chapter, " E t h n o n a t i o n a l i s m in the First World: T h e Present in Historical Perspective," Milton J. E s m a n , ed., Ethnic Conflict in the Western World (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 4 1 . Also see Clifford Geertz, "The Integrative Revolution," C l i f f o r d Geertz, ed., Old Societies and New States ( N e w York: Free Press, 1963), p. I l l ; and Harold R. Isaacs, Idols of the Tribe (New York: Harper C o l o p h o n B o o k s , 1977), p. 206. 2. N a t h a n Glazer and Daniel P. M o y n i h a n , "Introduction," in N a t h a n G l a z e r and Daniel P. M o y n i h a n , eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 7. Also see W a l t e r L. B a r r o w s , " E t h n i c D i v e r s i t y and P o l i t i c a l I n s t a b i l i t y in B l a c k A f r i c a , " Comparative Political Studies 9, no. 2 (July 1976): 162; and Abner Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 192. On Kenya's politicized ethnicity as "merely clientelism writ large," see John S. Saul, "The Dialectic of Class and Tribe," Race and Class 20, no. 4 (Spring 1979): 351. 3. Warren F. Ilchman and Norman T . Uphoff, The Political Economy of Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 11. 4. On the overlap between cultural identity and territorial unit, see Brian W e i n s t e i n , "Social C o m m u n i c a t i o n M e t h o d o l o g y in the S t u d y of N a t i o n Building," Cahiers d'études africaines 4, no. 4 (1954): 572-573. 5. M a x w e l l Owusu describes this core political culture as "a politicoadministrative atmosphere." See his book, Uses and Abuses of Political Power: A Case Study of Continuity and Change in the Politics of Ghana (Chicago: U n i v e r s i t y of C h i c a g o Press, 1970), p. 121. A l s o see R o b e r t M . Price, Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 150-151. 6. For a discussion of asymmetrical transactions, see Donald Rothchild and Robert L. Curry, Jr., Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy in Middle Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 3 2 4 - 3 2 8 ; Samir A m i n , Unequal Development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976), pp. 141-145; and Arghiri Emmanuel, Unequal Exchange (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), pp. 90-95. 7. O n this harmony of interest, see Johan Galtung, "A Structural T h e o r y of Imperialism," Journal of Peace Research 8, no. 2 (1971): 84; Colin L e y s , Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-colonialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 8 - 2 7 ; and Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963), pp. 142-143. 8. R a j n i K o t h a r i , " T h e C o n f r o n t a t i o n of T h e o r i e s w i t h N a t i o n a l Realities: R e p o r t on an International Conference," S. N. Eisenstadt and Stein
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Rokkan, eds., Building States and Nations: Models and Data Resources 1 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1973), p. 104. 9. Gabriel A. Almond, "Introduction: A Functional Approach to Comparative Politics," Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman, eds., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 49; Joseph LaPalombara, "Penetration: A Crisis of Government Capacity," Leonard Binder et al., Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 208; and James S. Coleman, "The Concept of Political Penetration," L. Cliffe, J. S. Coleman, and M. R. Doornbos, eds., Government and Rural Development in East Africa: Essays on Political Penetration (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), p. 3. 10. On the continuity of central state control values from colonial times to the present, see John Dunn and A. F. Robertson, Dependence and Opportunity: Political Change in Ahafo (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 154, 345. 11. Ibid, p. 121. 12. Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 32. 13. Ibid., p. 350. 14. See, in particular, Pablo G. Casanova, "Internal Colonialism and National Development," Studies in Comparative International Development 1, no. 4 (1965): 27-37; Robert Blauner, "Internal Colonialsim and Ghetto Revolt," Social Problems 16, no. 4 (Spring 1969): 393-408; Cynthia Enloe, "Internal Colonialism, Federalism and Alternative State Development Strategies," Publius 7, no. 4 (Fall 1977): 150; Michael Hechter, "Ethnicity and Industrialization: On the Proliferation of the Cultural Division of Labor," Ethnicity 3, no. 3 (September 1976): 214-224. Also see Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), pp. 5-6; and Gwendolen M. Carter, Thomas Karis, and Newell Stultz, South Africa's Transkei: The Politics of Domestic Colonialism (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1967). 15. Harold Wolpe, "The Theory of Internal Colonialism: The South African Case," Ivan Oxaal, Tony Barnett, and David Booth, e d s . Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and Society in Latin America and Africa (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), p. 230. 16. Donald Horowitz, "Three Dimensions of Ethnic Politics," World Politics 23, no. 2 (January 1971): 232. 17. Wolpe, "The Theory of Internal Colonialism," p. 230. 18. Samuel Decalo, "Regionalism, Political Decay, and Civil Strife in Chad," Journal of Modern African Studies 18, no. 1 (March 1980): 54. 19. I am indebted to Professor Ian Lustick for this observation. 20. Dunn, Dependence and Opportunity, p. 35. 21. Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 5. 22. Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1956), Chapter 2. 23. On this, see Leo Kuper, The Pity of It All: The Polarization of Racial and Ethnic Relations (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977). On Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's refusal to negotiate with Sikh spokesmen
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when their demands were "negotiable" and the subsequent escalation of these demands, see James Traub, "The Sorry State of India," New Republic 190, no. 22 (June 4, 1984): 19. 24. In elaborating on this concept, Kaunda stressed that government policies must be based on human development rather than material improvement. See Colin Legum, ed., Zambia: Independence and Beyond: The Speeches of Kenneth Kaunda (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1966), p. 31. Also see Kenneth D. Kaunda, Humanism in Zambia and a Guide to Its Implementation, part 2 (Lusaka: Government Printer, 1974), pp. xii-xvi. 25. Ali A. Mazrui, Post Imperial Fragmentation: The Legacy of Ethnic and Racial Conflict 1, no. 2 (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver, Studies in Race and Nations, 1969); Lucian W. Pye, "Identity and the Political Culture," Binder, Crises and Sequences, pp. 101-134; Erwin C. Hargrove, "Nationality, Values, and Change," Comparative Politics 2, no. 3 (April 1970): 473-499; and Harold Isaacs, "Basic Group Identity: The Idols of the Tribe," Ethnicity 1, no. 1 (April 1974): 15-41. 26. Mazrui, Post Imperial Fragmentation; Connor, "Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?" pp. 319-355; Karl W. Deutsch, "Research Problems on Race in Intranational and International Relations," George W. Shepherd, Jr. and Tilden J. LeMelle, eds., Race Among Nations: A Conceptual Approach (Lexington, Mass.: Heath Lexington Books, 1970), pp. 123-152; and Karl W. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966). 27. Karl W. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," American Political Science Review 55, no. 3 (September 1961): 493-514. 28. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968). 29. Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 51. Although such an impact was evident in Kenya's relationship among races, common interests proved sufficient to allow an effective bargaining encounter to emerge. See Donald Rothchild, Racial Bargaining in Independent Kenya: A Study of Minorities and Decolonization (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), Chapter 5. 30. René Lemarchand, "Revolutionary Phenomena in Stratified Societies: Rwanda and Zanzibar," Civilisations 18, no. 1 (1968): 47, and René Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi (London: Pall Mall Press, 1970), Chapter 18. 31. Quoted in Observer (London), May 22, 1977, p. 8. Also see Address to the Nation by the Prime Minister, the Honourable Ian Douglas Smith, M.P., May 20, 1969 (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1969), p. 2. Survey data from South Africa show whites more prepared to allow blacks to take skilled jobs (if white workers' jobs are not threatened by it) than to agree to concessions of political power. See Theodor Hanf, Heribert Weiland, and Gerda Vierdag, South Africa: The Prospects of Peaceful Change (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), pp. 212-213. Also see Lawrence Schlemmer, "Change in South Africa: Opportunities and Constraints," Robert M. Price and Carl G. Rösberg eds., The Apartheid Regime (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1980), p. 256, Table 10. 32. See Rothchild, Racial Bargaining, Chapter 5. 33. On the critical role of intellectuals in preserving these memories and communicating them to subsequent generations, see Myron Weiner, "Political Participation: Crisis of the Political Process," Binder, Crises and Sequences,
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pp. 170-172. Their advocacy of secessionist sentiments in Biafra are discussed in K. Whiteman, "Enugu: The Psychology of Secession 20 July 1966 to 30 May 1967," S. K. Panter-Brick, ed., Nigerian Politics and Military Rule: Prelude to the Civil War (London: Athlone Press, 1970), Chapter 6. For a European example, note the role of intellectuals in the formation of the Welsh Nationalist Party; see Plaid Cymru, Royal Commission on the Constitution 1969-1973, 1, Cmnd, 5460 (London: H.M.S.O., 1973), p. 108. 34. Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 268. 35. "Proportionality," writes Milton J. Esman, "recognizes the group basis of politics in communally divided societies and attempts to achieve rough equity among groups rather than among individuals." Milton J. Esman, "The Management of Communal Conflict," Public Policy 21, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 62. 36. See S. Egite Oyovbaire, "The Politics of Revenue Allocation," Keith Panter-Brick, Soldiers and Oil: The Political Transformation of Nigeria (London: Frank Cass, 1978), Chapter 8; and Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report to the Presidential Commission on Revenue Allocation, 1 (Apapa: Federal Government Press, 1980), pp. 25-31. 37. Donald Rothchild, "State-Ethnic Relations in Middle Africa," Gwendolen M. Carter and Patrick O'Meara, eds., African Independence: The First 25 Years (Bloomington: Indiana University Ptess, 1985), Chapter 4. 38. Kenneth Post and Michael Vickers, Structure and Conflict in Nigeria, 1960-1966 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), Chapter 4. 39. See Donald Rothchild, "Middle Africa: Hegemonial Exchange and Resource Allocation," Alexander Groth and Larry L. Wade, eds., Comparative Resource Allocation (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1984), pp. 172175. 40. Donald Rothchild, "Ethnic Inequalities in Kenya," The Journal of Modern African Studies 7, no. 4 (December 1969): 698-699; Donald Rothchild, "Rural-Urban Inequalities and Resource Allocation in Zambia," Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies 10, no. 3 (November 1972): 226; and Donald Rothchild, "Comparative Public Demand and Expectation Patterns: The Ghana Experience," African Studies Review 22, no. 1 (April 1979): 132-135. On the parallels among these experiences, see Donald Rothchild, "Collective Demands for Improved Distributions," Donald Rothchild and Victor Olorunsola, eds., African Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, Colo.: State Versus Ethnic Claims: Westview Press, 1983), pp. 172-198. Also see Anthony Oberschall, "Communications, Information, and Aspirations in Rural Uganda," Journal of Asian and African Studies 4, no. 1 (January 1969): 48. 41. Although President Kenneth Kaunda refused to give in to such pressures, he described some of the farmers' complaints as "genuine" and called on them to "keep quiet and wait for the government to deal with their complaints." Quoted in Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1978, p. 2. 42. Rothchild, Racial Bargaining, Chapters 1, 13. 43. Leo Kuper, "Some Aspects of Violent and Nonviolent Political Change in Plural Societies," Leo Kuper and M. G. Smith, eds., Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 156. 44. Crawford Young, "Comparative Claims to Political Sovereignty: Biafra, Katanga, Eritrea," in Rothchild, State Versus Ethnic Claims, p. 219.
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45. Vernon Van Dyke, "The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory," World Politics 29, no. 3 (April 1977): 350-357, and his "Human Rights and the Rights of Groups," American Journal of Political Science 18, no. 4 (November 1974): 725-741. On the conflict between groups and individual rights, see Ernst Haas, "Human Rights: To Act or Not to Act?" Kenneth Dye, Donald Rothchild, and Robert Lieber, eds., Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1979), pp. 174-175. 46. Onyeonoro S. Kamanu writes that "for this rationale to be plausible it must be demonstrated that all other political arrangements capable of ensuring the aggrieved group a measure of self-determination short of outright independence had been exhausted or repudiated by the dominant majority." "Secession and the Right of Self-Determination: An O.A.U. Dilemma," Journal of Modern African Studies 12, no. 3 (September 1974): 361. 47. The United Republic of Tanzania, Tanzania Government's Statement on the Recognition of Biafra (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1970), pp. 1, 4-5. On the "social contract" theme as the basis for a natural rights doctrine on secession, see Lee C. Buchheit, Secession: The Legitimacy of SelfDetermination (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 51-58. 48. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 37. 49. Kuper, The Pity of It All, p. 254. Also see Alexander Dallin and Gail W. Lapidus, "Reagan and the Russians," Kenneth Oye, Robert Lieber, and Donald Rothchild, eds., Eagle Defiant (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), pp. 206209; and Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976). 50. Barry M. Schutz, "Homeward Bound? A Survey Study of White Rhodesian Nationalism and Permanence," Ufahamu 5, no. 3 (1975): 81-117. On this, also see A. K. H. Weinrich, Black and White Elites in Rural Rhodesia (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1973), pp. 69-75; and Cyril A. Rogers and C. Frantz, Racial Themes in Southern Rhodesia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962), chapter 15. 51. David Easton, "An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems," World Politics 9, no. 3 (April 1957): 389. 52 Donald Rothchild, "Military Regime Performance: An Appraisal of the Ghana Experience, 1972-78," Comparative Politics 12, no. 4 (July 1980): 462-466. Describing the military as negatively disposed toward political activity, Eric A. Nordlinger writes: "More than any other elite group, military officers view political parties as undesirable agents of disunity." Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1977), p. 56. 53. Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 74. 54. Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 26, 88. 55. Donald Rothchild and Michael Foley, "The Implications of Scarcity for Governance in Africa," International Political Science Review 4, no. 3 (1983): 311-326; and Richard Rose and Terence Karran, "Inertia or Incrementalism?" Groth, Comparative Resource Allocation, chapter 2. 56. Henry Bienen's warning is appropriate: "Demands and participation must be kept analytically separate. Increased participation need not lead to increased effective demands." Kenya: The Politics of Participation and Control
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(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 194. Cf. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 78-80, 222, 398. 57. On choice strategies, see Rothchild, Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy, pp. 112-142. For a discussion of the stabilizing effects of mass political participation and one-party dominance in pluralistic societies, see Robert W. Jackman, "The Predictability of Coups d'Etat: A Model with African Data," American Political Science Review 72, no. 4 (December 1978): 12731274. 58. James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1971), p. 72. 59. Nelson Kasfir, "State Formation and Social Contract Theory: Rwenzururu and the Southern Sudan" (Paper presented to the African Studies Association, Denver, November 6, 1971), p. 17. 60. Charles E. Lindblom, Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 75. On the trade-off between short-term political stability and economic development and state autonomy, see Percy C. Hintzen and Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: Coercion and Control in Political Change," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 3 (August 1982): 352. 61. Deutsch, "Social Mobilization," pp. 497-498. For a Third World but non-African example of these processes, see Lloyd D. Musolf and J. Fred Springer, Malaysia's Parliamentary System: Representative Politics and Policymaking in a Divided Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), Chapter 7. 62. Cynthia H. Enloe, Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), pp. 81-82. 63. West Africa, October 2, 1978, p. 1935. 64. On the role of international "regimes" in facilitating cooperation, see Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 244. 65. Lindblom, Politics and Markets, p. 136. 66. Alvin Rabushka, Race and Politics in Urban Malaya (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), p. 99. 67. Manfred Halpern, Applying a New Theory of Human Relations to the Comparative Study of Racism (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver, Race and Nations Monograph Series, 1969), p. 14. Also see his "Changing Connections to Multiple Worlds," Helen Kitchen, ed., Africa: From Mystery to Maze (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976), esp. fns. 12 and 13, pp. 43-44. 68. Pierre L. van den Berghe, "A Response to Heribert Adam," Rothchild, State Versus Ethnic Claims, p. 149. 69. On the nuances in control strategies, see Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980); and Heribert Adam and Hermann Giliomee, Elite Power Mobilized (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979). 70. That is, unless what Jacques J. Maquet describes as "the premise of inequality" is accepted by rival parties. See his The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda: A Study of Political Relations in a Central African Kingdom (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 160-172. Also see Philip Mason, Patterns of Dominance (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 11, 21, Part 3. 71. Cf. M. G. Smith, "Institutional and Political Conditions of Pluralism," in Kuper, Pluralism in Africa, p. 38.
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72. John de St. Jorre, A House Divided: South Africa's Uncertain Future (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1977), pp. 133-134. 73. Daniel J. Crowley, "Cultural Assimilation in a Multiracial Society," Annals of the New York Academy of Science 83, Article 5 (January 18, 1960): 851. 74. David D. Laitin, "The Political Economy of Military Rule in Somalia," Journal of Modern African Studies 14, no. 3 (September 1976): 466. 75. Milton Obote, "Language and National Identification," East Africa Journal 45, no. 1 (April 1967): 4-5. Also see Ali A. Mazrui, Cultural Engineering and Nation-Building in East Africa (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1972), pp. 99-100. 76. Of course, in part it was also an expression of Africa's authentic cultural distinctiveness. See Ruth Schachter Morgenthau, Political Parties in French-Speaking West Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 14. Also see Ezekiel Mphahlele, "The Fabric of African Cultures," Foreign Affairs 42, no. 4 (July 1964): 624. 77. René Lévesque, An Option for Quebec (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), p. 14. On resistance to assimilationist tendencies in Yugoslavia, see Dennison Rusinow, The Yugoslav Experiment 1948-1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 134-135. 78. Philip Abbas Ghabashi, "The Growth of Black Political Consciousness in Northern Sudan," Africa Today 20, no. 3 (Summer 1973): 35. 79. Oliver Albino, The Sudan: A Southern Viewpoint (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 109. Also see Abel Alier, "The Southern Sudan Question," Dustan M. Wai, ed., The Southern Sudan: The Problem of National Integration (London: Frank Cass, 1973), p. 20. 80. The Addis Ababa Agreement was reprinted in Grass Curtain 2, no. 3 (May 1972); also see Dunstan M. Wai, "Geoethnicity and the Margin of Autonomy in the Sudan," Rothchild, State Versus Ethnic Claims, p. 319. 81. See Jane J. Martin, "How to Build a Nation: Liberian Ideas About National Integration in the Later Nineteenth Century," Liberian Studies Journal 11, no. 1 (1969): 25, 29-30, 39-42; Martin Lowenkopf, Politics in Liberia: The Conservative Road to Development (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976), pp. 3, 87, 147-149, 172; and Merran Fraenkel, Tribe and Class in Monrovia (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), Chapter 6. 82. Quoted in Fraenkel, Tribe and Class, p. 205. 83. On purposive depoliticization as applied to "open" societies, see Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 129130; and Eric A. Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1972), p. 26. With respect to "closed" societies, see Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, pp. 78-92; Rothchild, Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy, pp. 74-75; and Nelson Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). 84. West Africa, April 24, 1978, p. 775. 85. See Rothchild, "Military Regime Performance," pp. 462-466; and Maxwell Owusu, "Politics Without Parties," African Studies Review 22, no. 1 (April 1979): 89-108; and Marvin G. Weinbaum, "Afghanistan: Nonparty
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Parliamentary Democracy," Journal of Developing Areas 1, no. 1 (October 1972): 60-64. 86. The movement of Japanese-Americans to detention camps during World War II would represent a temporary form of displacement. Cynthia Enloe also extends displacement to genocide, the "physical elimination of a group considered so 'marginal' to the state's needs that its loss is deemed inconsequential." "Internal Colonialism," p. 149. 87. Although Hanoi originally intended to expel only the Chinese upper middle class, less fortunate Chinese who identified with their departing kinsmen on the basis of economic and ethnic ties joined the exodus from Vietnam. See New York Times, January 14, 1980, p. A8. 88. CDU/CSU Party, White Paper on the Human Rights Situation in Germany and of the Germans in Eastern Europe (Bonn: 1970), pp. 47, 55, 6465. 89. Similarly, Guinea's S£kou Tour6 resisted any linkage between Western private investment and outside pressure on human rights in his country. See West Africa, December 17, 1978, p. 2472. 90. On doubts concerning the full implementation of these agreements, see Walter Schwarz, The Tamils of Sri Lanka, Report no. 25 (London: Minority Rights Group, 1975), p. 8. 91. Donald Rothchild, "Majimbo Schemes in Kenya and Uganda," Jeffrey Butler and A. A. Castagno, eds., Boston University Papers on Africa: Transition in African Politics (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 291-318. 92. These efforts at external buffering are discussed in Donald Rothchild, "U.S. Policy Styles in Africa: From Minimal Engagement to 'Liberal Internationalism,'" in Oye, Eagle Entangled, pp. 314-316. 93. Michael Clough, "From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe," Michael Clough, ed., Changing Realities in Southern Africa (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1982), pp. 49-50; Jeffrey Davidow, A Peace in Southern Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 44, 46; and Robert S. Jaster, A Regional Security for Africa's Front-Line States: Experience and Prospects (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 180, 1983), p. 12. 94. Rothchild, Racial Bargaining, Chapter 4; Y. P. Ghai and J. P. W. B. McAuslan, Public Law and Political Change in Kenya (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 413-456; and S. A. de Smith, "Fundamental Rights in Commonwealth Constitutions," Journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth 43, no. 1 (January 1962): 10-19. 95. For a forthright statement to this effect, see The United Republic of Tanzania, Report of the Presidential Commission on the Establishment of a Democratic One Party State (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1965), pp. 30-33. 96. Federal Republic of Nigeria, The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1978). On group rights, see Vemon Van Dyke, "Human Rights as the Rights of Groups," pp. 730-40; and Karl von Vorys, "Group Rights and Instruments of Public Policy in the Development of Viable, Democratic Systems" (Paper presented at the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 19, 1975), p. 20.
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97. Donald Rothchild, "Middle Africa: Hegemonial Exchange and Resource Allocation," in Groth, Comparative Resource Allocation, pp. 172175. 98. See Charles H. Kennedy, "Policies on Redistributional Preference in Pakistan," (Chapter 3) and Gordon P. Means, "Ethnic Preference Policies in Malaysia" (Chapter 4) in this volume. 99. Calculated from West Africa, May 10, 1982, p. 1262. 100. See Daniel G. Matthews, "Nigeria 1984: An Interim Report," no. 24, CSIS African Notes (February 29, 1984): 3. 101. New African, no. 218 (November 1985): 24; and Africa Research Bulletin 22, no. 9 (October 15, 1985): 7786-7787. 102. In India, police opened fire on 30,000 people rioting in Gujarat against government redistributive policies that set aside a number of civil service jobs and university positions for the disadvantaged castes and classes, New York Times, April 29, 1985, p. 6. 103. Frequently, one is inclined to link the short-term benefits of hegemony with long-term costs, but as the case of Somalia's military takeover has shown, a hegemonial approach has enabled decisionmakers to establish a language policy that widened the potential decision elite to include broader participation by those from the southern region and rural areas generally. See David D. Laitin, Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 132. 104. Aaron Wildavsky, Speaking Truth to Power (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 389.
3 Policies of Redistributional Preference in Pakistan CHARLES H. KENNEDY Pakistan has suffered, before and since its emergence as an independent nationstate, from disabilities associated with regional differences and the resultant nationalist demands that these differences generate. The creation of Pakistan itself was fueled by the spectre of prospective second-class citizenship for Muslims in a Hindu-dominated independent India. From Partition until the dismemberment of the state in 1971, Pakistan served as the ideological battleground for antithetical visions of Punjabi and Bengali nationalisms. Indeed, the consequences of such conflicting visions—the 1971 civil war and the emergence of Bangladesh—have marked what may prove to be the only instance in the twentieth century of a successful violent secessionist movement. Ominously, since the mid-1970s the spectre of regionalism and possible future secessionist sentiment has been voiced by disaffected, if ambitious, Pathan, Baluch, and Sindhi leaders. Pakistan's decisionmakers have addressed such demands through a variety of policies running the gamut of hegemonic and hegemonic exchange strategies.1 Arguably (at least according to actual or would-be secessionists), Pakistan has consistently pursued policies of "subjection" since Partition, first in the quest for West Pakistani and later Punjabi dominance. Indisputably, Pakistan has also attempted assimilative strategies at several points—Muhammed Ali Jinnah's Urdu language policy; the One Unit Scheme of 1959 which called for the administrative unification of West Pakistan; and, currently, President Zia-ul Haq's Nizam-i-Islam (Islamic Order). Indeed, the Islamic response to ethnic diversity is inherently assimilationist, with its stress on the unity of the ummah (community of believers) and on egalitarianism. President Zia took such assimilative tendencies a step further by pursuing a strategy of avoidance, duly buttressed by Islamic precedence, to justify the banning of political parties (many regionally based), in the Federal
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Council election of March 1985. His argument was that partisan divisions are not countenanced by Islam. 2 More extensive and comprehensive, however, have been Pakistan's redistributional responses to ethnoregionalist demands. Since 1949 Pakistan has instituted complex regional and special interest quotas for recruitment to federal, provincial, and semigovernmental posts. Similar quotas with myriad variations have also been applied to the admission policies of educational institutions. Currently, within Pakistan, recruitment to most public sector jobs and admission slots to educational institutions are subject to ethnoregional quotas. Indeed, Pakistan's policies have approached the logical extreme of a redistributional strategy. But despite such policies, which are ostensibly designed to reduce ethnoregional conflict, Pakistan has remained persistently beset by ethnoregional conflict. Ironically, some of this conflict is attributable to the redistribution policies themselves. This chapter analyzes Pakistan's redistributional policies and is divided into four sections. The first presents the case for the adoption of such policies in Pakistan, that is, the policy logic of redistributional programs; the second provides a brief history of the development of policies of ethnoregional preference in Pakistan; the third examines the operation of the system; and the final section offers general conclusions derivative of Pakistan's experience.
The Policy Logic of Pakistan's Redistribution
Policies
The origin of Pakistan's policies of ethnic preference can be traced to the preparation sentiments and strategies of the Muslim League. Perhaps the most compelling argument for the creation of Pakistan, one stressed with increasing fervor by Muhammed Ali Jinnah following the Lahore Resolution of 1939, was that Muslims in an undivided India would remain subservient to the Hindu majority. To substantiate this hypothesis it was only necessary to point out the wide discrepancies in Muslim and non-Muslim representation in the civil service, the military, educational institutions, and the business elite. Muslims, the argument ran, underrepresented in each could not bridge the gap until they had a state of their own. The eventual form such an interpretation took was the demand for a separate state based on the amalgamation of majority Muslim communities. Therefore, the demand for a state was linked inextricably with the demand for increasing regional representation of Muslim majority areas. After Partition the focus shifted to similarly defined gaps between East and West Pakistan. Bengalis (East Pakistan) were underrepresented in the civilian bureaucracy, the professions, business, the military, and politics. 3 The politicization of these gaps eventually led to the dismemberment of the
Redistributional Preference in Pakistan
65
Pakistani state in 1971. Before this occurred, however (as will be detailed below), regional quotas were introduced in the federal bureaucracy and in educational institutions that were designed to ameliorate such perceived gaps. Since 1971 the justification for the continuation of such regional quotas has been predicated on three characteristics of post-Bangladesh Pakistan: multiethnicity; developmental gaps between regions of the state; and the persistence of unbalanced institutional and political development
Multiethnicity Since the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, truncated Pakistan has contained four major ethnic groups. In numbers the largest of these are the Punjabis, followed in respective populations by the Sindhis, the Pathans, and the Baluch. 4 Each of these groups is defined by an admixture of linguistic and geopolitical attributes. For instance, Punjabis are centered in the province of the Punjab and their ostensible mother language is Punjabi, Sindhis are domiciled in the Sind and speak Sindhi, Pathans live in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and speak Pushto, and Baluch live in Baluchistan and speak Baluchi or Brohi. However, there is significant slippage in such definitions of ethnic identity. Pakistan's ethnic compostion has been deeply affected by external and internal migration. Most obvious are the so-called muhajirs (literally, pilgrims), Indian Muslims who opted for Pakistan at the time of Partition and who settled primarily in the urban areas of Pakistan, particularly Karachi. 5 Further, since Partition there has been a largely ignored though significant "trickling" of in-migration, primarily from India and Bangladesh. The 1981 census estimates that this trickle has accounted for 4 million immigrants to Pakistan since 1948.6 Not included in the census data are the variously estimated 2.5-4 million temporary migrants/refugees from Afghanistan. Most such individuals speak Pushto and are ethnically related to the Pathans. Most live in border communties or camps in the NWFP, but there have been recent attempts to officially disperse some of these residents to the Punjab and Sind, and considerable unofficial resettlement of individual Afghans in the major cities of Pakistan has already taken place. In addition to such in-migration, there has been considerable interprovincial and intraprovincial migration as well. Two patterns deserve note. One has been the migration from rural to urban areas, spurred by brighter employment opportunities in the cities. The urban population of Pakistan grew by 7.25 million from 1972 to 1981.7 A second phenomenon, also largely fueled by employment prospects, has been the interprovincial shifting of population from the Punjab and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to Baluchistan and Sind. 8 One consequence of these
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Charles H. Kennedy
population shifts has been the ethnic diversification of Pakistan's major urban areas—Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi/Islamabad. Another has been the threat to the indigenous population of the smaller provinces, particularly Baluchistan, of outside domination. For instance, Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, has more Pathan residents that indigenous Baluch.9 There is also slippage in regard to linguistic determinants of ethnicity. Pakistan has a national language—Urdu—and perhaps 90 percent of the population can speak or at least understand it. 10 Conversely, less than 5 percent of the population can speak or understand English, yet it has remained the predominant medium of higher education, the courts, and the government since Partition. Though there have been numerous attempts to enhance the significance of Urdu in the national life of Pakistan, and parallel attempts to limit the importance of English, such assimilative strategies have been blunted from two directions. On the one hand, it is argued that increasing the importance of Urdu will detract from the importance of provincial languages, particularly Sindhi and Pushto. On the other hand, President Zia's recent attempts to enhance the importance of Urdu by replacing English as the language of examination at the matriculation level by 1989 and by making Urdu instruction compulsory have been met with firm resistance from educators, the middle class parents of affected students, and provincial autonomists. In brief, their respective arguments are that (1) no adequate Urdu language classroom materials exist; (2) discarding English will limit the international prospects of Pakistani graduates; and (3) such a policy will favor native speakers of Urdu and closely related Punjabi at the expense of other linguistic communities. 11 Underlying the debate regarding the enhancement of Urdu in Pakistan is the fact that Urdu, though the link language of the state, is the primary language of only a small minority of the population. The 1981 census found that Urdu is "usually spoken" by only 7.6 percent of the households in Pakistan (mostly muhajirs or children of muhajirs and primarily in Karachi or Islamabad), while Punjabi is spoken in 48.2 percent of the homes, Pushto in 13.1 percent, Sindhi in 11.8 percent, Siraiki in 9.8 percent, Baluchi in 3 percent, Hindko in 2.4 percent, and Brohi in 1.2 percent. 12 A further complicating factor is that such linguistic diversity is not related exclusively to provincial domicile. For instance, only 79 percent of those domiciled in the Punjab speak Punjabi in their homes; correspondingly, 68 percent of those domiciled in the NWFP speak Pushto; 57 percent of the Baluchistan population speak Baluchi or Brohi; and only 52 percent of people living in the Sind speak Sindhi. 13
Redistributional
Preference in Pakistan
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Bandaranaike, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike's widow, was no more sympathetic to their concerns. The Tamil elites again participated in a UNP government in 1965. Once again they found that the leadership was unsympathetic to their demands and left the coalition in 1968. The history of Tamil pariticipation in Sri Lankan politics during this period was one of limited Tamil influence. The Tamils were not able to stop policies created to benefit the Sinhalese community. However, they found that they did have the power and influence to exact some concessions, although these concessions did not change the thrust of government policies. Clear examples of this can be seen in the education and language policies of this era. The concessions made to the Tamils prompted them to continue participating in the government throughout the period. It was only after it became apparent that the government was not going to be more sympathetic to the Tamil demands, and a new generation of leaders began to appear, that the Tamil leadership changed its demands. The leadership became dissatisfied with the government, and the young began to resort to violence.
Restriction of Ethnic Minorities The policies that restricted ethnic minorities are best exemplified by two policies enacted in the first twenty years of independence. These were the denial of Indian Tamil citizenship, a strategy of displacement, and the restricting of Christian schools, a strategy of cultural assimilation. Indian Tamil Citizenship. The first policies dealing with the ethnic minority communities in Sri Lanka were enacted shortly after independence. They were an indication of what was to be expected in the years to come. The first target was the politically weakest community on the island, the Indian Tamils. A series of legislative actions denied the Indian Tamils citizenship and the right to vote. These policies were supported by the Sri Lanka Tamil leadership represented by G. G. Ponnambalam and the Tamil Congress. It is believed that Ponnambalam's fear of communism caused him to support the denial of citizenship and the right to vote to a community that had a history of supporting leftist movements—the Indian Tamils.5 The Citizenship Act of 1948 "created two categories of citizenship (1) by descent and (2) by registration." 6 To qualify for citizenship by descent, one had to be able to prove that his or her father, or his or her paternal grandfather and great grandfather had been born in Sri Lanka. Citizenship by registration was granted to people who had rendered distinguished service to the nation "and/or had been naturalised as British subjects in Sri Lanka." 7 A maximum of twenty-five people could be given citizenship by registration each year. Even though most of the Indian Tamils had been born in Sri
Ethnic Preference in Sri Lanka
143
Lanka, they were considered by the government to be Indian citizens and thus aliens. The new country's leadership saw them as a product of British colonialism, and therefore, independent Sri Lanka sought to settle the problem by restoring the Indian Tamils to their "rightful" status. The act removed their citizenship while a year later the Indian and Pakistani Residents Act of 1949 established certain criteria that allowed Indian Tamils and Moors to apply for Sri Lankan citizenship. Indians and Pakistanis could apply for citizenship if they had a Sri Lankan income, if their wives and children resided with them in Sri Lanka, if they renounced any other citizenship, and if they had been resident in Sri Lanka for ten years prior to January 1, 1946, if single, and seven years if married. 8 The Ceylon Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act of 1949 further restricted the rights of Indian Tamils. It barred noncitizens from having their names entered in the register of elections. This effectively disenfranchised the Indian Tamils who had elected six members to the first Parliament of independent Sri Lanka. These acts began a long series of compromises and policies that intended to resolve the ambiguous status of the Indian Tamils. The Indian and Pakistani governments were reluctant to accept these people as citizens, and the Sri Lankan government was faced with a significant number of stateless individuals. In addition, the government was very slow in processing the applications of Indian Tamils for citizenship. The deadline date for applications was August 5, 1951, but all of the applications were not processed until 1962.9 Of the more than 825,000 Indian Tamils applying for citizenship, only slightly more than 16 percent were granted citizenship. 10 A series of negotiations began between the prime ministers of Sri Lanka and India to resolve the status of the Indian Tamils. The Indian government initially refused to accept as citizens those Indian Tamils who had been denied Sri Lankan citizenship. In 1964 Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Prime Minister Lai Bahadur Shastri of India came to an agreement on the repatriation of the Indian Tamils (Indo-Ceylon Agreement of October 1964).11 The act called for the repatriation of 525,000 of the estimated 975,000 Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan citizenship for 300,000. The status of the remaining 150,000 Indian Tamils was to be decided at a later date. 12 Ultimately, the two governments decided to split the remaining Indian Tamils: 75,000 were to go to India and 75,000 were to remain in Sri Lanka. However, the implementation of the agreement has been hindered by slowness in the granting of Sri Lankan citizenship and Indian repatriation as well as by charges that many of the Indian Tamils to be repatriated have overstayed their visit and refused to leave. The government of President J. R. Jayawardene, which came to power in 1977, agreed in 1984 to grant citizenship to the remaining 100,000 stateless Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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Christian Schools. The issue of Christian schools began to simmer as soon as independence was achieved. However, it was not forcefully dealt with until the early 1960s. At issue was the question of the type of education available to Sinhalese youths. The best schools on the island had been the Christian-run schools, and their alumni received better employment after graduation. 1 3 Buddhists wanted their children to attend the best schools available but did not want them to be subjected to Christian proselytizing. The Christians had succeeded in achieving political and economic influence beyond what would have been expected according to their percentage in the population. In 1960 and 1961 the SLFP government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike adopted a strategy of assimilation by nationalizing the Christian schools. The clergy, at first, resisted this attempt but ultimately gave in to the nationalization. The takeover of the prestigious Christian schools was seen as a means to improve the quality of Buddhist education. At the very least it weakened the influence of the Christians in Sri Lankan society. The UNP government that came to power in 1965 did not make any effort to retract the nationalization. In fact, the government carried the policy one step further by replacing the Christian sabbath, Sunday, with the Buddhist holy day, the poya day, as a public holiday. The end result of both these policies was the weakening of the position of the Indian Tamils, which in a sense undermined the Tamil community as a whole, and the weakening of the dominant position of Christianity. Although both policies were intended to restore the Sinhalese to their "rightful" place, this was accomplished by weakening the Tamils and not by directly strengthening the Sinhalese as the next set of policies intended to do.
Policies of Restoring the Sinhalese Culture The Language Issue. There has been no other issue in Sri Lanka since independence that has created as much controversy and conflict as the issue of language. At the heart of the Sinhalese restoration has been the question of the Sinhala language and its place in society. 14 When the British gained control over Sri Lanka, the language of colonial government became English. The British staffed the colonial bureaucracy with English speakers. However, with the advent of mass education, most Sri Lankans were educated in Tamil or Sinhala and were unable to qualify for prestigious government jobs. This led to a demand for Swabasha, or the people's own language. At the time of independence the country's leadership was committed to replacing English with Tamil and Sinhala. However, it was not until 1956 and the election of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike's SLFP that the issue was finally decided by the government. The issue was seen at that time as a SinhalaTamil question rather than an English-Swabasha issue. The first enactment
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of the SLFP government in 1956 was the Official Language Act, which declared that Sinhala was the one official language of Sri Lanka. 15 The act was to be implemented immediately, if possible, and no later than 1960 in areas where it was impractical to implement at once. In essence, the language policy was a strategy of cultural assimilation that sought to make Sri Lanka a one-language state. The immediate consequence of the language act was the alienation of the country's Tamil speakers. The relations between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities soon deteriorated, and riots broke out in 1958. Bandaranaike responded by supporting the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act of 1958. This act provided for the use of Tamil in higher education as well as in public service entrance exams as long as those recruited by the exam developed proficiency in Sinhala in order to continue in service or receive promotions. 16 The act was not implemented until the UNP came to power in 1965 with the support of the Federal party, the Tamil Congress, and the Ceylon Worker's Congress. 17 The Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Regulations, 1966, added to the 1958 act the right to use Tamil in certain government transactions in the northern and eastern provinces and for official correspondence between people literate in Tamil. Once again the language legislation led to violence. A riot resulted after the SLFP-led opposition called for a demonstration against the act. 18 After the SLFP came to power in the United Front coalition government in 1970, the issue once more arose when the United Front promulgated a new constitution in 1972. From the Tamil perspective, Chapter 3 of the constitution improved on what had been in effect up until that time by granting Tamil an official status in some government transactions. 19 However, Chapter 3 did not enshrine the 1958 Tamil Language Act and left Tamil as a subordinate language. Thus, the new constitution did not alleviate Tamil discontent about the language issue. In 1977 the UNP was swept into power with a five-sixths majority, and its government changed the constitution in 1978. Under the new constitution (Chapter 4), Tamil is given the status of a national language while Sinhala remains the offical language. The significance of the national language status was not spelled out in the constitution, and the constitutional provisions did not remove Tamil criticism of the government language policy. 20 Buddhism and the State. Another issue of cultural assimilation—the role Buddhism should play in Sri Lankan society—was coupled with the language issue. The arrival of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka is believed to coincide with the death of the Buddha. 21 Buddhism holds a very special place in the identity of the Sinhalese. It is not surprising that the religion has been enshrined in the constitution. The constitution of 1978 states in Article 9 that "the Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and
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accordingly it shall be the duty of the state to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana" (Sasana is the totality of Buddhist teachings). Thus, Buddhism is accorded a special place above the other religions practiced in Sri Lanka. The governments since 1956 have actively promoted Buddhism although guaranteeing the rights of the other religions. Educational Policies. Education is another area in which policies were implemented to assist the Sinhalese community. The Sri Lankan educational system is one of the best in South Asia. Education has been given very high priority by the government and the people. One consequence of this stress on education has been very stiff competition for admission to the universities of Sri Lanka. The university admission system is modelled on the British educational system with a series of examinations for admission to the universities. Prior to 1970 the exams were conducted in English, Tamil, and Sinhala with those receiving the highest scores gaining admission to the university. Youths from the Jaffna peninsula consistently scored higher on the examinations. This was especially the case in the science exams. As a result of their higher test scores the number of Tamil youths entering the university exceeded their percentage in the university-age population. Many Sinhalese felt that the examiners in the Tamil medium deliberately inflated the scores of the Tamil youths in order to admit more Tamils to the university. In 1970 the United Front government enacted the first of a series of policies of preference to protect the Sinhalese students by limiting the number of university placements available to Tamil youths. Initially a system of "standardization" was created. Details of the scheme were not disclosed, but it did limit the number of Tamil students admitted to the university by requiring higher entrance exam scores for those taking the examination in the Tamil medium. 22 This was changed in 1973 to a system of "area quotas" in which the number of university openings was limited for each language group. 2 3 The immediate result of these policies was a reduction in the number of Tamil youths allowed into the universities. In addition, Tamils had to score higher on their examinations in order to qualify for admittance to the university system. 24 The UNP government that came to power in 1977 tried to resolve this controversy by changing the system of standardization through a quota system. The quota system provided for 30 percent of all admittances on merit (raw scores), 55 percent on the basis of the population in administrative districts, 25 and 15 percent for backward districts. 26 This system was not popular and has undergone several revisions. Once again, the policies intended to protect the Sinhalese majority from what was seen as discrimination in favor of other ethnic groups. The policies described in this section all were meant to help restore the Sinhalese community to its "rightful" place of dominance in the society. By
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the mid-1970s this largely had been done. There were few areas where the Sinhalese needed to establish new policies. The Sinhalese now had to protect their new gains from Tamil charges that the policies were biased against the Tamil community. The Tamils' demands increasingly reflected their frustration with postindependence policies. The Tamils believed that government policies did not reflect the needs and interests of their community. The Sinhalese found themselves in a defensive position and responded to the Tamil demands by trying to offer concessions to the Tamils without giving up any of the gains achieved.
The Enforcement of Parity (1977 Through Early 1980's) The second major period of ethnic policies in Sri Lanka began in the mid1970s. It is marked by more coercive policies and strategies of cultural assimilation and subjection. However, although the government has stressed coercive strategies, it has also tried power-sharing again. In 1977 the United National party came to power with the largest parliamentary majority in the island's history. The party had the power to change the constitution at will and to enact any policies it sought. The Tamil leadership felt that once again, as in the past, a UNP government would be more sympathetic to its demands than the SLFP had been. However, the policies enacted to restore the Sinhalese community to its position of dominance were largely in place, and there was little to do but protect the status quo. Meanwhile, the Tamil leadership was divided between the older generation represented by the TULF and the more militant youths who were no longer willing to wait for change to come. These two trends collided after the 1977 elections. The UNP government was faced with a choice between making concessions to the Tamils that would alienate the UNP power base among the rural Sinhalese or trying to protect the gains already made for the Sinhalese community. They chose the second path and thus enforced the status quo. A series of policies were introduced that took a harder line against Tamil demands. The Sri Lanka Tamil leadership as represented by the TULF was shut off from influence in the government and finally expelled from the Parliament in October 1983. 27 The government's choice was made easier by the insurrection of Tamil youths in the northern and eastern provinces. The violence began after the 1970 elections but increased sharply after 1977. A series of riots in 1977, 1981, and 1983, in which the victims were largely Tamils, occasioned a reaction in kind by Tamil youths. The policies that emerged in the post-1977 era intended to enforce Sinhalese control over the society while allowing the Tamils power-sharing in a Sinhalese-dominated framework. For instance, for the first time since the
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early 1950s, the government expanded the number of Tamils in the cabinet (see Table 6.5). However, the three ministries (Home Affairs, Regional Development, and Rural Industrial Development) held by Tamils in the 1980s did not have very much cabinet influence, nor did they have patronage power. But they were important for other reasons. The minister of rural industrial development was S. Thondaman, the most influential leader of the Indian Tamils. He had been first elected to Parliament in 1947 as a member of the Ceylon Workers Congress. His entry into the cabinet in 1978 undermined whatever unity there might have been between the Indian and Sri Lanka Tamils. The ministers of home affairs and regional development (K. W. Devanayagam and C. Rajadurai) were Tamils from the eastern province. Devanayagam, a longtime UNP member, and Rajadurai, a crossover to the UNP from the TULF in 1979, helped to foster a separation between the eastern province Tamils and those from the Jaffna peninsula, although tension had existed between these two groups for some time because of their geographic separation and the large disparity in their levels of development. The Jaffna Tamils tended to be much better educated and economically advanced. The strategy of power-sharing with two relatively disadvantaged Tamil groups isolated the Jaffna Tamils. Coupled with this power-sharing strategy have been a series of much more coercive policies. One of the first actions of the UNP government was to ignore one of its election pledges. The United National party election manifesto promised to call an All-Party Conference to remedy the Tamil grievances. 2 8 The manifesto also promised to include the results of the conference in the new constitution they promised to promulgate. 29 The constitution was written and passed into law in 1978. The All-Party Conference did not meet until January 1984 after a sharp escalation in the level of violence betweeen the two communities. By this time both the Tamils and the Sinhalese had become completely disenchanted with each other. Important elements of both communities refused to participate in the conference once it was called. The "tiger" organizations called for a TULF boycott of the conference while the SLFP initially decided not to attend the meetings. In any case, the UNP had successfully alienated the Tamil leadership by failing to call the conference before the writing of the new constitution as had been promised in the election manifesto. A third set of policies during this era that irritated the Tamils was government hiring practices. The Tamil leadership claimed that the new government was doing an even worse job of hiring Tamils in government positions than the earlier SLFP government. Table 6.6 reports hiring in selected fields by ethnic group during the first two years of the government. It indicates a sharp deterioration in the Tamil position in the three occupations under analysis. The Sinhalese constituted 74.0 percent of the total population but received 89.9 percent of the teaching, clerical, and police
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constable positions available. The Tamils (both Indian and Sri Lankan) constituted 18.2 percent of the population and received 5.8 percent of the jobs available. Even the Moors, who made up 7.1 percent of the population, received fewer jobs than would be expected from their percentage in the total population (they received 4.3 percent of available jobs). Table 6.6 Ethnic Group and Government Eftiployees Hired in Selected Fields, 7/22/77-10/12/79 Sinhalese Tamil Moor number percent number percent number Percent Teachers General clerical Police constables Total Total number of government employees as of July 1, 1980
22399
89 .3
1518
6 .1
1164
4 .6
3127
94 .0
148
4..4
51
1 .5
343
91..7
17
4,.5
13
3,.5
25869
89..9
1683
5..8
1228
4,.3
311089
84..3
42818
11..4
12283
3..3
Sources: Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) vol. 9, no. 5, col. 364; vol. 10, no. 17, col. 1586; and Government of Sri Lanka, Census of Public Sector Employment—1980 (Colanbo: Department of Census and Statistics, 1983) .
A fourth set of policies involving the Tamils has been those relating to home rule, or federalism. As noted earlier, federalism was one of the early demands of the Federal party leadership. The concept of decentralized development administration had captured the imagination of Sri Lankan leaders as early as the 1950s; S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike had proposed a system of regional councils in 1958. However, it was not until the SLFP instituted the Political Authority scheme in 1974 that the idea was taken seriously. The Political Authority was later changed to the Decentralized Budget under the UNP government in 1977. 30 The plan called for the allocation of a set amount of money for each electorate in the country. The money was to be spent on development projects by the member of parliament (MP) of that district; the MP had the power to plan and administer the project. The program was quite successful although the amount of money involved was not substantial. In 1981 the government extended the Decentralized Budget plan by creating District Development Councils (DDCs) that were intended to increase the amount of home rule in the local areas. 31 The councils were to gather revenues through taxation and to assume many of the responsibilities of local government. Each council was to be made up of the district MPs and elected representatives not to exceed the number of MPs on the council, but the plan
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has not been successful. Many of the councils have been unable to generate any revenue and without finances are largely powerless. In addition, the expulsion of the TULF from Parliament also removed them from the DDCs in their districts. The councils had the potential to resolve some of the Tamil demands by establishing some regional autonomy in the Tamil areas. 32 However, the government did not seem very committed to the policy it expounded. In the summer of 1984 an influential government official connected with the plan remarked that more power and finances could not be given to the councils in the Tamil areas because there was no way of knowing what the Tamils would do with the money and power. 33 Once again, the Sinhalese leadership appeared to be threatened by Tamil intentions. The violence by the Tamil youths has provided a pretext for the government to take very harsh action against the violent youth organizations as well as Tamils in general. Since 1977 the government has responded to the violence by the Tamil "tiger" organizations with very harsh policies. The "tigers" are guerrilla groups that had taken up arms against the government over the question of Tamil rights. After 1977 the number of acts by the "tigers" increased rapidly. The government responded by passing the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 1979. The major provisions of this act allow any superintendent of police or subinspector to make warrantless arrests and searches. The minister in charge may order the detention of a suspect for up to eighteen months without the minister's decision being subject to judicial review. Also, the relevant minister may place restrictions on a suspect that limit his or her movements, contact with others, and political activity for up to eighteen months. 34 In addition, the act calls for all offenses under the act to be tried by a single judge without a jury; confessions obtained by the authorities without legal safeguards for the accused are admissible as evidence. The International Commission of Jurists has argued that the law's provisions are so broad that they are not even remotely comparable to similar laws in other democracies operating under the rule of law.35 Since the enactment of this law the government has taken much harsher actions in the northern regions of the country. The army has on a number of occasions since 1977 gone on rampages against Tamil citizens in retaliation for attacks by the "tigers." Despite claims to the contrary by the Ministry of National Security, there appears to have been very limited if any disciplinary action taken against those involved in these attacks. By permitting these actions, the government has been able to intimidate the Tamil citizenry. An important feature of this hard line toward the Tamil youths has been the practice of making "sweep arrests" of Tamil young people in areas where an attack has occurred. In most cases the youths are held for several weeks before being released, but "tiger" suspects are held for longer periods of time. An example of this practice is the case of Velvetthurai, a coastal village, in
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August 1984. After two sailors were killed by the "tigers," the army moved into the village and arrested 650 youths. Most of them were between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. They were held for almost a month before all but 8 of them were released. These policies have led at least one government minister, S. Thondaman, an Indian Tamil, to remark that the policy of "arresting innocent people on mere suspicion that they were terrorists and harassing them" has helped to create terrorists.36 The government policies have also been directed against the nonviolent leadership of the Tamils, such as the legal TULF. In 1983, after the July and August riots, the government enacted the Sixth Amendment to the constitution. It barred the peaceful advocacy of separatism. Members of the TULF were required to take an oath affirming their opposition to Eelam (an independent Tamil state). They refused to do so and were removed from Parliament and barred from the practice of law. This action effectively removed the one legal voice of the Tamil people and enhanced the position of the more radical "tigers." The TULF leaders lost the use of Parliament as a forum for their cause, and communication between the Tamils and the Sinhalese deteriorated. Following the TULF's expulsion from Parliament, some members of the UNP began to carry out a propaganda campaign to discredit the TULF leadership even further. The campaign has included public statements by government leaders excoriating the TULF leadership and prominent display of articles critical of the TULF in both government and private newspapers. In addition to these policies, actions have been taken that have been directed against all Tamils. These have included threats by the government to discontinue all development projects in Tamil areas and a directive from National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali that government workers in the northern and eastern portions of the island would be personally responsible for all state property stolen by the "tigers."37 The policies enacted since the mid-1970s have sought to limit the possibility that the Tamils could challenge the gains made by the Sinhalese during the 1950s and 1960s. The employment policy, the failure to call the All-Party Conference, the expulsion of the elected representatives of the TULF from Parliament, and the harsh policies directed against noncombatants in the violence in the Tamil areas have all contributed to the maintenance of the current relationships between the Tamils and the Sinhalese.
Conclusion The previous discussion has described two major periods of government policies toward ethnic minorities in Sri Lanka. The first period was one of Sinhalese restoration; the second saw the maintenance of the Sinhalese
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position in Sri Lankan society. Policies in the first stage were intended to reestablish the Sinhalese to a position of dominance in the society commensurate with their position as the majority ethnic group and to restrict some of the minority ethnic groups. Second-stage policies sought to maintain the newly dominant Sinhalese position. During the first period the Tamil community exercised a fair amount of influence and power in the government. The political system was open and resembled Rothchild's hegemonial exchange system. In the second period the open political system declined with the expulsion from Parliament of the only Tamil party representatives. What follows is an attempt to explain the deterioration in the hegemonial exchange system in Sri Lanka. As Rothchild has noted, the response of the state to minority ethnic group demands will have an impact on the nature of the relations between the ethnic groups. In Sri Lanka the democratic structure is majoritarian in nature. Without specific safeguards to protect the political influence of the ethnic minorities, the country has pursued majoritarian policies that have reflected the demands of the Sinhalese majority at the expense of the country's minorities. Rothchild has noted that hegemonial exchange state systems allow more conflict and interaction between ethnic groups because of the placement of representatives of the society's groups in the cabinet and other positions of authority. In Sri Lanka the early attempts to place Tamils in positions of authority soon broke down as the Tamil electorate continued to support only their own parties in the elections and not those of the Sinhalese dominated majority—the UNP and SLFP. Thus, the country was ruled for the first thirty years of independence with a limited amount of Tamil influence in government. One author closely associated with the ruling UNP has argued that the Federal party had a very dismal record of achievement during this period, 39 but it can also be argued that the party's failure was a consequence of the majoritarian system. In any case, the result of policies enacted during these first thirty years has been the failure of the government to process and respond to Tamil demands. This failure, of course, is one of the causes of Tamil separatism and violence. In response to this conflict the government has put the rebellion down with very harsh methods and refused to give into Tamil demands. The end result of these events has been a move by the government to eliminate militarily any armed opposition by the Tamil people. Violence has resulted as the Tamils have fought back. Large numbers of Tamils have sought asylum in other countries as the system of law and order has broken down in the Tamil regions. The police, the army, and the "tigers" are responsible for this breakdown. Restoration of a peaceful communal environment in Sri Lanka will require the establishment of rules to guide the demands for governmental
Ethnic Preference in Sri Lanka
153
resources by the various ethnic groups. The conflict in the country must be channelled into peaceful actions. This will require a very strong and concerted effort by the government to reestablish the rules of the game. At the moment, the Tamils do not have any significant input into policymaking. The system needs to be restructured in order to allow the Tamils this input. Until this restructuring is done, the communal situation in Sri Lanka will continue to remain unresolved.
Notes 1. See James Jupp, Sri Lanka: Third World. Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 1979). 2. K. Sivathamby, "Some Aspects of the Social Composition of the Tamils of Sri Lanka," Social Scientists Association, eds., Ethnicity and Social Change in Sri Lanka (Colombo: Social Scientists Association, 1984), pp. 128-129. 3. In addition to these four ethnic groups, several small groups are found on the island. These groups are the Indian Moors, Malays, and Burghers. The Burghers are of mixed European, usually Dutch or Portuguese, and Sri Lankan extraction. During the colonial rule they were highly influential in government and commerce. This influence has declined in recent years. 4. G. G. Ponnambalam was not appointed to the cabinet until 1948, one year after its original formation. 5. Satchi Ponnambalam, Sri Lanka: National Conflict and the Tamil Liberation Struggle (London: Zed Books, 1984), p. 77. 6. A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, 1947-1979 (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 24. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., p. 25. 10. Ibid. 11. The agreement is also known as the Sirima-Shastri accord. 12. Shelton U. Kodikara, Foreign Policy of Sri Lanka: A Third World Perspective (New Delhi: Chanakya, 1982). 13. Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, p. 14. 14. See Robert N. Kearney, Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon (Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 1967). 15. Ibid., p. 82. 16. Urmila Phadnis, Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976), p. 272. 17. The 1965 coalition included sixty-six members of the UNP and the support of fourteen Federal party and three Tamil Congress members. 18. Phadnis, Religion and Politics, p. 273. 19. Wilson, Politics in Sri Lanka, pp. 220-221. 20. A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, The Gaullist System in Asia: The Constitution of Sri Lanka (1978) (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 119-120. 21. Kearney, Communalism and Language, p. 41.
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22. C. R. De Silva, "Education," K. M. De Silva, ed., Sri Lanka: A Survey (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1977), p. 429. 23. Sunil Bastian, "University Admission and the National Question," Social Scientist's Association, Ethnicity and Social Change. 24. C. R. De Silva, "The Politics of University Admissions: A Review of Some Aspects of the Admissions Policy in Sri Lanka 1977-1978," Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences 1 (1978): 85-123. 25. The country is divided up into twenty-four administrative districts. 26. Bastian, "University Admission," p. 166. 27. It should be noted that there were four Tamil MPs from the east coast supporting the UNP government. 28. H. W. Abeynaike, Ceylon Daily News Eighth Parliament of Sri Lanka, 1977 (Colombo: Associated Newspapers of Ceylon, 1978). 29. Abeynaike, Ceylon Daily News, p. 262. 30. See Robert C. Oberst, Legislators and Representation in Sri Lanka: The Decentralization of Development Planning (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985). 31. Bruce Matthews, "District Development Councils in Sri Lanka," Asian Survey 22 (November 1984): 1117-1134. 32. The TULF and several of the leaders of the UNP did not believe that the plan could or would resolve Tamil demands. However, it did have the potential of providing Tamil regions with some local rule. See Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) 11, no. 7, cols. 480-481. 33. Wickrema Weerasooriya (Meeting with author in Colombo, July 5, 1984). 34. Paul Sieghart, Sri Lanka: A Mounting Tragedy of Errors (London: International Commission of Jurists, 1984), p. 32. 35. Ibid., p. 33. 36. Island, September 15, 1984. 37. Island, November 6, 1984. 38. Jay Rothman, "Majority Rule and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka" (Unpublished paper presented at the first meeting of the Council for the Facilitation of International Conflict Resolution, University of Maryland, College Park, 1984). 39. T. D. S. A. Dissanayaka, The Agony of Sri Lanka (Colombo: Swastika Press, 1983).
7 Politics of Preference in the Caribbean: The Case of Guyana RALPH R. PREMDAS If the political allocative process in most developed countries is complex, then the process found in the typical Third World country is a veritable nightmare. At least in most industrially developed states, a body of shared values establishes the limits of discourse about basic issues of regime form and its system of distribution. However, in most states in the Third World, the social fabric is shattered by the pervasive phenomenon of multiethnicity and the assoicated absence of overarching agreements required to moderate competition for scarce resources.1 Nearly every important decision made by the typical Third World government, which itself may be operating under the limitation of illegitimacy, tends to be interpreted through the prism of ethnicity. Each daily decision must reaffirm the faith of ethnic equity if legitimacy and democracy are to be preserved; otherwise, the threat of sabotage or secession is imminent. The fragile social fabric can easily succumb to destabilization and acts of disunity.2 The Guyana case illustrates these propositions and more. Guyana is a multiethnic state created almost two centuries ago by colonialism. Its six ethnic groups live on an enclave situated in the northeast shoulder of South America, but they are integrated functionally as part of the Caribbean culture. When Guyana was colonized, a new tier of political control was superimposed on the society. The subsequent importation of African slaves and Indian indentured laborers from the Old World to toil on cotton, coffee, and sugar plantations created a complex multiethnic, multitiered society from which communal interests evolved and imparted to Guyanese politics its enduring, defining characteristic.3 The politics of cultural pluralism in Guyana has been marked by ethnic competition for scarce resources in an environment of underdevelopment and poverty. 4 More than a decade ago Samuel Huntington underscored this theme
155
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Ralph R. Premdas
generally in the Third World when he noted that "communal conflict, in contrast for instance to social revolution, has emerged as the dominant form of social strife." 5 In Guyana communal interests assumed preeminence from the inception of plantation society. More than two centuries later, in the immediate preindependence and postindependence periods, attempts were made to institute a system of justice consonant with the imperatives of ethnic arithmetic and communal demands. Because of interethnic leadership intransigence, however, the distribution of security, jobs, goods, services, and projects fell under the control of one or the other of the two major ethnic groups. Neither of the two trusted the other. Below the periodic rhetorical flourishes of commitment to intercommunal fellowship and unity that each group ritualistically proclaimed lurked an ingrained obsession with ethnic shares and fear of domination. In this chapter I examine the politics of preference and distribution in Guyana, an ethnically divided state. The underlying assumption of this examination is that political behavior is sufficiently distinctive in unintegrated politics to warrant separate analytic treatment. Several notable models are available in the comparative politics literature to facilitate analysis of deeply divided societies. These models can be grouped around three ideas: hegemonic control; open competition; and segmental accommodation. A brief definition of each category is given below; however, none of them is adopted in its entirety in this study. Wherever useful and relevant, concepts from each have been applied to the data. This study shows that in the same multiethnic state, drastic changes can occur in ethnic relations and in the politics of preference during different historical phases. In all multiethnic countries the dynamic of change demonstrates swings from one modal type of struggle for scarce resources to another, ranging from domination to competition to accommodative configurations. The process of change is continuous and ethnic preferences that prevail today in Lebanon, Belgium, Malaysia, Fiji, or Guyana may change radically in a short time. At any moment a regime may embody mixes of competition, control, or accommodation; indeed, the regime's policy may incorporate the forces of its transformation. Any new equilibrium can only be tentative. In this flux, the academic enterprise consists of analyzing historical data to identify the long-run, stable patterns of ethnic conflict, their impact on the distribution of governmental resources, and the forces of transformation in evidence from one stage to the next. In Guyana the politics of ethnic preference moved through three phases, each bearing its defining core characteristics. In phase one, a multiethnic society was formed, but it was dominated by the colonial power so that most of the system's highly preferred values were monopolized by Europeans. After nearly a century the electoral franchise was gradually liberalized, and the seeds of the succeeding order were planted. In phase two the monopoly of
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European dominance was broken and modified initially by an emergent nonwhite middle class. But this was only a preliminary gambit in a larger unfolding game where the colonial order was challenged and eventually expelled. Full-scale interethnic competition for the preferred values of government activity ensued. Intense conflict between the ethnic segments developed for power, jobs, projects, and security; this conflict was translated at the national level as competitive party politics. In phase three, one of the two major nonwhite ethnic groups seized power and applied the state apparatus and its full panoply of preferences to consolidate and perpetuate the group's control over the government. In a curious twist of events, then, phases one and three completed a full circle: Each phase was structurally similar to the other and marked by ethnic control and dominance. The salient difference was that in phase one, colonial rule made no pretense of being a system of democracy and was not committed to a society based on egalitarian ideals. In phase three, however, ethnic dominance paraded under the banner of Marxism-Leninism, at once practicing ethnic chauvinism while invoking lofty humanistic values. If the central concern of phases one and three was control, then phase two's concern was open competition for resources. I shall examine the patterns in each phase to illustrate the characteristic features of government policies and ethnic preference. In what follows, then, two modal types of ethnic conflict for resources are discussed: monopoly hegemonic control and an open competitive market. The third variant, segmental accommodation, was ephemerally experienced in Guyana during the nationalist struggle for independence.
Monopoly Hegemonic
Control
As defined by Rothchild, in a hegemonial system one ethnic segment dominates the others, wields preponderant coercive power, and arrogates to itself most of the benefits of the state.6 Hegemonic control is facilitated by a centralized state apparatus in which a few grudging concessions of participation in decisionmaking are extended to excluded groups. Dominated ethnic groups are kept in their subordinate role by policies that formally or informally segregate them in discrete geographical and residential areas, limit their access to the strategic pillars of state power, and perpetuate their dependence on the ruling group for survival. M. G. Smith, like Furnivall before him, viewed ethnic domination and control as virtually inevitable in unintegrated multiracial states.7 Methods of hegemonial ethnic control may be relatively loose or rigorously regimented. Where control is loose, the dominant ethnic stratum tends to be accepted with little challenge to its hegemonic role by subordinate
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segments; the system of governmental allocation is rationalized by a widely accepted ideology of ethnic superiority. In the rigorously regimented order, as described by Ian Lustick, Sammy Smooha, Donald Rothchild, and Heribert Adam, a comprehensive set of repressive measures is erected to contain the political demands of subordinate segments. 8 The state is more steeply centralized, exclusion of the subordinate groups from power and privilege more complete, surveillance and terror more intensely utilized, and dependence, cooptation, and ethnic symbols more thoroughly manipulated to ensure survival of the control system. In effect, tight controls are required because legitimacy of the governing regime is not accepted but challenged. In Guyana the period of European monopoly (1803-1891) corresponds to the loose variant of the ethnic hegemonic control model; the period from 1968 onward corresponds to the rigorously regimented variant. In the control model only selective sharing of resource with ethnic subordinates takes place, usually as an incentive for compliance with the system of ethnic hegemony. Bargaining is not the style of settling claims except when the system of ethnic dominance begins to crumble. To bargain with subordinate segments is to open the door to the loss of control of "the rules of the game." 9
Open Competitive Market Basically, in its ideal Weberian expression, the open competition market model embodies universalistic values stringently applied in a meritocratic order. Achievement criteria and not family or personal connections determine the distribution of government jobs and budgetary allocations. Electorally, in the competitive system, elections are conducted on a formula of first-past-thepost simple plurality. The winning party takes all in a zero-sum market struggle. In the government bureaucracy ascriptive criteria in assigning posts and promotions are ideally nonexistent. In practice, its ideals notwithstanding, competitive-universalistic models tend to incorporate aspects of ascription in resource and job allocation. Tests of achievement and performance, for instance, may reflect the mores of one section or class. Or open exceptions such as gender and age may be applied. In Guyana a modified competitive system slowly emerged that was based on European concepts of achievement. Slowly, color and ancestry were relegated to secondary importance in the determination of state preferences. However, the roles of color, race, and personal connections were never completely set aside; thus, the emergent competitive system did not attain its fullest development in Guyana. After the independence movement split apart along ethnic lines, the public bureaucracy yielded to politicization. Equity in the distribution of jobs embodied in the concept of "representative
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159
bureaucracy" never took root although it was recommended by an international organization. 10
Segmental
Accommodation
In the segmental accommodation model, the communal segments seek a formula for sharing power and the benefits of official administration so as to maintain a minimum measure of democracy and order. Arend Lijphart's consociational model is the most celebrated among the designs for accommodation in multiethnic states. 11 Critics such as Brian Barry, Jurg Steiner, and Donald Rothchild have argued that Lijphart's proposal is too formal, complex, and rigid. 1 2 Rothchild advocates a more informal bargaining arrangement that he labels hegemonial exchange, which stresses the role of sharing, protection, redistribution, and buffering. His framework relies heavily on the questionable assumption that ethnic demands can in practice be separated into negotiable objective interests and subjective nonnegotiable symbolic needs. 13 Further, Rothchild places too much reliance on the mechanism of bargaining thus minimizing the strength of substantive issues. The former cannot be reduced to the latter. Like Lijphart's consociational model, Rothchild's scheme could also be deemed overly complex if not too sanguine about the role of a rational formula in bringing stability and sanity to the communal conflicts in plural societies. Nevertheless, the Lijphart and Rothchild proposals offer useful insights into the complexities of ethnic conflict and accommodation. Most formulations for interethnic accommodation focus on certain critical areas: recognition of each community's right to govern its internal communal affairs (segmental autonomy); symbolic and substantive participation of all ethnic segments in decisionmaking at the national level (coalition); quotas (proporz) in allocating government jobs (representative bureaucracy); and veto powers given each community over decisions affecting their vital interests (mutual veto). The fundamental objective of the various accommodation arrangements is to depoliticize aspects of the allocative process (Rothchild's objective negotiable interests) in a manner that ensures that no community obtains all or is denied all of the benefits of the state. This assumes that a system of equitable participation, accepted by the communal segments, will guarantee stability and a measure of democracy. In contrast, the zero-sum feature built into the market competitive model tends to lead to disorder and eventually to ethnic domination and even population expulsion and genocide. A sharing arrangement may avert intercommunal catastrophe. It can establish a middle ground between an outright repressive control system and an open, zero-sum, market competitive order. In Guyana a sort of accommodation between the major ethnic segments developed in the
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Ralph R. Premdas
•p as Ha 01 0)& •u
a) . vi
- fH.
m
s
ao gP an
Politics of Preference in the Caribbean
161
electoral and parliamentary areas from 1950 to 1953 when the multiethnic independence movement was jointly led by Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham. Again, in 1974 the two major communal parties were discussing a "peace plan." Even today there are proposals and counterproposals for a government of national unity. But none has been accepted. Ethnic dominance prevails. Corresponding to each model is a pattern of preference in governmental allocations and a pattern of representation reflecting the underlying principles of control, competition, or consociation. Table 7.1 graphically shows the outline of this pattern.
Phase One: The Formation of a Segmented Society and European Monopoly Hegemonic Control Guyana is often referred to as the "land of many peoples." The country, populated mainly by descendants of immigrants, comprises six ethnic groups—Africans, East Indians, Amerindians, Portuguese, Chinese, and Europeans. A significant "mixed" category also exists consisting of persons who have any combination or mixture of the above groups. Table 7.2 gives the ethnic breakdown of the population. Africans and Indians constitute more than 80 percent of the total, thereby imparting a bifurcated ethnic structure to the population. Nearly all of Guyana's people are concentrated on a 5 to 10 mile belt along the country's Atlantic coast. The ethnically heterogenous population is loosely integrated by a Creole culture that has evolved during the last two hundred and fify years of Guyanese history. Nonetheless, strong social integrative institutions are few; they are rivalled by equally strong Table 7.2 Ethnic Composition of Guyana's Population
Group
Size
%
East Indians
377,256
51.0
Africans
277,091
30.7
Amerindians
32,794
4.4
Portuguese
9,668
1.3
British
3,076
0.5
Chinese
4,674
0.6
84,077
11.4
Mixed
Source: Guyana Population Census 1970 (Georgetown: Government Printery, 1970).
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Ralph R. Premdas
subcultural patterns that threaten periodically to burst the society asunder at its ethnic seams. The origins of Guyana's multiethnic structure go back to the first efforts at New World colonization attempted by Europeans. The area stretching from the Orinoco River to the Amazon, which includes the Guianas, came at one time or the other under the purview of French, Dutch, and British explorers. In the early seventeenth century the British started a settlement in Surinam, the French established two settlements in French Guiana, and the Dutch planted settlements at various points in what is now Guyana. The Dutch began plantation production in the seventeenth century; when they were evicted from the colony by the British in 1803, the dominant economic organization of the colony was the plantation. Importation of Africans, East Indians, Portuguese, Chinese, and poor whites to Guyana resulted from the nature of the plantation system, which to be viable required massive amounts of cheap labor. 14 By 1829, 230 sugar plantations and 174 coffee and cotton estates existed in Guyana. 15 Under British colonialism, cotton and coffee did not enjoy preferential prices, so they quickly succumbed to North American competition. Sugar production then became the dominant economic activity. Indeed, Guyana became little more than a huge sugar plantation. In the Caribbean culture area, including British Guiana, the establishment of plantations was accomplished by the massive recruitment of African slaves. Resort to African sources of forced labor became necessary after the indigenous inhabitants, the Amerindians, had "succumbed to excessive labor demanded of them," 16 while the poor whites who were indentured from Europe failed to meet the rigors of plantation life. 17 In 1807 the British slave trade with Africa was halted. Slavery in the British Caribbean, however, was not abolished until 1833. 18 Labor shortages that followed emancipation explain the addition of Chinese, Portuguese, and East Indians (from the Indian subcontinent) to the already existing ethnic groups in Guyana. Between 1835 and 1840 small batches of German, Portuguese, Irish, English, Indian, and Maltese laborers were recruited. 19 During 1853 Chinese were recruited. In the end, Asian Indians proved most adaptable, economical, and available, although Chinese and Portuguese immigrants trickled in for more than a half century. Between 1838 and 1917 approximately 238,960 indentured East Indian laborers arrived to work on the plantations. 20 At the expiration of their indentures nearly two-thirds opted to remain as free, permanent residents.21 The pattern of life of the ethnic groups in Guyana separated the communties into virtual cultural, residential, and occupational compartments, allowing for interaction mainly in economic and trade areas. The Europeans lived mainly in exclusive, guarded residential enclaves on sugar estates and urban areas. They were predominantly planters and settlers and controlled most of the colony's economic wealth and official political positions. Partly
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because of their economic and political power, a color-class stratification system evolved whereby things English and "white" were valued highly whilst things African and black were valued lowly. . . . The ability to speak properly, to dress properly, and to be able to read and write were all marks of prestige defined with reference to "English" culture. What gave the system its distinctive character was the element of color. 2 2
In effect, in this first phase of history European ethnic superiority was established, and European preeminence in monopolizing the preferred values of society was being institutionalized—thus would emerge the basic outlines of a loose control system. The year 1838 witnessed African exodus from the plantations. 23 At the end of the Free Village Movement, which lasted for a decade (1838-1848), more than one hundred villages were established. 24 By the end of the nineteenth century more than one-half of the African villagers would gravitate to urban centers where government jobs were available. 25 By the end of the first phase of European dominance, Africans held the position of advantage over other non-European groups. They became unbanished, educated, and acquired industrial skills and training. Africans dominated every department of the civil service by 1950,26 while their portion of the population declined to 6.8 percent by I960. 27 Indians who remained in Guyana continued their close relationship with the plantations. Many were allotted land contiguous to the sugar estates in exchange for giving up their contractual right to return to India. A series of Indian villages sprang up within a radius of 15 miles of the plantations. Indians tended to work at first both on their private plots and on the plantations, but many progressively moved into full-time rice farming on private plots. By 1946 the Indian outflow from the sugar estates left only one-third as plantation residents; their urban presence was barely 10 percent. 28 In the 1960s, 25.5 percent of the Indian population was on sugar estates, 13.4 percent in urban centers, and the remaining 61.1 percent in villages. 29 Guyana's Indians then became predominantly rural dwellers serving either as sugar workers or farmers. They displayed distinctive patterns of cultural life initially reflecting residues of their Indian cultural heritage. After World War II, however, the Indian quest for civil service jobs required them to acculturate to English ways. Indians became a significant force in the 1950s and 1960s when their cultural adaptation brought them in competition with their African compatriots for scarce job opportunities. The other ethnic elements in the population were small, but they, too, established their own residential and occupational niches. Amerindians were assigned to "reservations" mainly in the country's sparsely populated interior
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areas, while the Chinese and Portuguese gravitated to urban areas where the former engaged in service industries such as restaurants and the latter in the professions and business. 30 Thus would a plural society be formed. 31 Slavery and indenture were the twin bases on which successful colonization of the climatically harsh tropical coasts occurred. A work force of culturally divergent immigrants was recruited to labor on plantations in the New World. Different patterns of residence, occupation, and cultural orientations by the imported groups reinforced original ethnic differences, thereby laying from the inception of settlement the foundations of Guyana's politics. By the beginning of the twentieth century certain features were clearly embedded in the social system. A communally oriented, multiethnic society was being fashioned. The control system was dominated by Europeans and an accompanying system of colonial laws and practices that institutionalized racial inequality along a color-class continuum. The wealth produced from the sugar plantations was repatriated to the metropolitan center, leaving very little for the plantation workers. African-Indian rivalry developed over the remnants of the colonial pie. Intercommunal struggle, however, would be restrained by the preponderantly rural-urban and occupational dichotomy that prevailed between the two major ethnic groups during the early colonial period. In an interdependent communal order the political balance was held by a colonial government originating in conquest, maintained by coercion, and perpetuated by a color-class stratified order. The British who created the multiethnic social fabric served as the exclusive top tier in the stratified colonial hierarchy. Among the Europeans, however, a special subgroup, the planters, wielded dominant power in the Combined Court, the colonial decisionmaking body. Because of excessively high property and income requirements, the electorate was confined to the European planters. In the Combined Court the plantocracy controlled the purse string of British Guiana. "It determined the salaries of public officials, judges, civil servants. It decided whether or not money would be raised to maintain roads, construct sea defences, and extend the drainage systems. It determined how much money would be available for public health, welfare, and education."32 The area of public finance in particular displayed the prejudices of colonial administration. Prior to the emancipation of slavery, the state administrative machinery was simple because each plantation was "a little state in itself," and there was "little crime, no magistrates and no police." 33 Most state revenues were derived from a poll tax on slaves while planters paid an income tax of only 2 to 3 percent. 34 Once slavery was abolished, however, the plantocracy had to find a new source of revenues, and this was solved, as Alan Adamson pointed out, "by shifting the tax burden onto the Negro peasantry, the indentured immigrants and in a lesser degree the emerging Creole bourgeoisie." 35 Expenditures on public services such as
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165
health and education were negligible. After the abolition of slavery a significant part of government revenues was expended on sponsoring the importation of indentured laborers for the plantations. As the colonial society became more racially and economically complex, the Combined Court increased its budgetary expenditure on police, jails, and the judiciary from 3 percent in 1833 to about 25 percent in the 1850s. 36 Overall, then, in the loose control system the nonwhite population was not only exploited and made dependent on the superordinate planter group, but through a combination of laws, courts, and police enforcement, the basic structure of state domination and ethnic preference was maintained.
Phase Two: The Multiethnic Competitive Mode While in phase one, Guyana's politics was characterized by European dominance; phase two witnessed a challenge to the old order. Persistent struggle during a half century (1891-1953) finally succeeded in evicting the old plantocracy from their positions of privilege. In the first phase, the rules of the game in the allocation of governmental resources were simple and hardly contested: The European conquerors by virtue of acquiring power from the Dutch in 1803 monopolized the benefits of state for themselves and engrafted a color-class stratification system to institutionalize their preeminence. In the second phase, the challengers came mainly from the nonwhite segments, and their associated interests differed radically from those of the plantocracy. To be sure, the initial modification of the control system was gradual, but after World War II the old order rapidly eroded. A modified meritocracy was inaugurated, operating in a communal milieu with its intrinsic ethnic motifs and restraints. For the purpose of analysis, phase two is divided into two parts. The first part examines the limited changes that occurred when the constitutional order was liberalized and a stratum of nonwhite middle class persons acceded to influence in government and administration. The second part addresses the radical challenges to the colonial order that overturned it after World W a r n .
The Political
Accession
of the Nonwhite
Middle
Class
In 1891 Guyana experienced a major constitutional advance. After persistent pressure from the colony's emergent nonwhite middle class, the British colonial office liberalized franchise requirements to enlarge political participation. In the 1850s eligibility to vote required property worth at least $7,500 (BWI). 37 The electorate then consisted of only about 900 persons, all
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Ralph R. Premdas
Europeans, in a total population of about 130,000. In 1891 franchise restrictions were lowered to about $480.00 (BWI) and were even further liberalized about a decade later so that by 1915 the voting list showed that the nonwhite population had made impressive gains (see Table 7.3). Table 7.3
The Electorate in 1915
Race
% of Male Population
% of Electorate
% Registered Voters
East Indians
51..8
6..4
Africans
42,.3
62..7
6..8
Portuguese
2,.9
11..4
17..7
European
1..7
17..0
46,.1
Chinese
0.
.9
2,.4
12,.3
0.
.6
Source: Leo Despres, Cultural Pluralism and National Politics in British Guiana, (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967), p. 40.
These figures show that a remarkable event of potentially revolutionary proportions had occurred by 1915—the African bourgeoisie had grown into the majority group in the electorate and had, in fact, come to control the financial affairs of the colony. 38 Cynthia Enloe commented on the impact that this control had on the allocation of public service jobs: A s early as 1925, of the persons e m p l o y e d in the c o l o n i a l bureaucracy, 84.7% were listed as Negroes, while a mere 4% were listed as East Indians. This despite the fact that already the East Indians, brought to the colony by the ship load as indentured laborers to work the sugar plantations after slavery was abolished, amounted to 41.97% of the population, while Negroes represented only 39.36%. Europeans, Portuguese, and light-skinned persons of mixed parentage continued to dominate the upper reaches of the civil service, right up to the m i d - 1 9 6 0 s . 3 9
Table 7.4 illustrates Enloe's points. In other words, the European monopoly dominance had yielded to penetration and modification mainly by persons who were middle income Africans and mixed races. A fully competitive market model was still to emerge though, for color would continue to play a significant role in Guyana's political life until the mid-1950s. As one observer noted: Even when non-whites were qualified professionally, they experienced difficulty in being recruited. This may be illustrated with reference to the medical field. Recruitment into the Colonial Medical Service was normally undertaken by the Colonial Office and it was not unusual for
Politics of Preference in the Caribbean information to be applicants. 4 0
requested
on the racial
antecedents
of
167
the
By 1940 the non-white group, especially Africans and mixed races, was even making it up to the very top of the public service and into the select group of pensionable staff (see table 7.5). Table 7.4
Ethnic Shares in the Public Service, 1925 (in percentages)
Pace
% of Population
% in the Public Service
Europeans
1..11
3..0
Portuguese
3..08
0,.2
Chinese
0..91
0..2
East Indians
41,.97
4..0
Negroes
39..36
84..7
Mixed
10..28
7,.3
.22
0,.6
Not stated Source:
Daily Argosy (Guyana), August 13, 1925.
After emancipation it was the African communal section among the nonwhite society that took advantage of European education. In 1835 Christian denominational schools received a subsidy from the colonial government to provide limited public elementary education. (Secular schools did not exist. 41 ) Most Indians saw the church-run schools as a cultural threat to their religious identity and therefore withheld their children. Further, Indians, most of whom engaged in full- or part-time farming, utilized their Table 7.5
Ethnic Canposition of Pensionable Civil Servants, 1940
Race Europeans
Department or Executive Heads N %
Pensionable Staff % N
27
79,.4
89
14.1
Africans
5
14..7
419
66.6
East Indians
0
0..0
63
10.0
Portuguese
2
5..9
40
6.4
Chinese and Others
0
0.,0
18
2.9
34
100.,0
629
100.0
Total
Source: Cheddi Jagan, Hie West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana's Freedcm (Berlin, Seven Seas Publications, 1966) p. 163.
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Ralph R. Premdas
children in the fields. The upshot was that "by the end of the century, the Africans had come to dominate the public services at the national as well as the local level". 42 Although a compulsory universal education ordinance was passed in 1876, it was not until the 1930s that Indians were compelled to send their children to Christian denominational schools. 4 3 Then, slowly but inexorably, Indians converged on the schools and in a reversal of their previous attitudes regarded the schools as an elixir to a new life free from the toil of agrarian drudgery. The repercussions of this new Indian position vis-àvis education reverberated throughout the 1950s and afterward. Africans, mixed races, and others found in Indians new if not fierce competitors for limited job opportunities. Africans, in particular, faced the full brunt of this competitive assault, and this in turn unleashed an intense round of rivalry for the resources of the state. The European segment, already small, with the passage of time was eased out as a major force in the struggle for jobs. Africans and Indians confronted each other in ethnic competition that spilled over into party politics. 44 But Africans already had nearly a century's clear advantage, and this consequently placed them on the defensive. Indians were seen as the new challengers in the same way as the mixed races and Africans were seen by the Europeans at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1928 the Colonial Office, acting under the pretense of the indebtedness of the Combined Court, suspended the 1891 constitution, which placed financial powers in the hands of the Black and mixed race middle class. A regressive crown colony system of government was imposed, which returned decisionmaking control to the colonial administration.45 One positive feature of the constitutional change was the enfranchisement of women, but the old property and income qualifications for the vote remained very restrictive. Leadership and impetus for change after 1928 passed from the middle class black bourgeoisie to a multiracial and modernizing radical group that rejected piecemeal reform for a more fundamental rearrangement of the colonial order. 46 Trade unions emerged as the main mobilizer of popular sentiment. 47 A new era of politics was upon the colony. After World War II the political framework would alter and with it the nature of the politics of distribution.
Ethnic Conflict and the Politics of
Decolonization
The unified multiracial independence movement that emerged in Guyana after World War II saw as its first task the elimination of colonial control and, with it, European dominance in the public service and society in general. The movement did not envisage a period of intense turmoil between Africans and Indians after the force of European presence waned. Although the control system was superseded by a relatively open market for state opportunities, the
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competition that ensued was cast in a zero-sum struggle between Africans and Indians. The denial of adequate reforms in the colonial order after World War II invited the emergence of a radical response. In 1946 a Political Affairs Committee (PAC) was formed by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, a Marxist who had just returned from university training in the United States. 48 The PAC aimed at "establishing a strong, disciplined and enlightened party equipped with the theory of scientific socialism." 49 The PAC analyzed the colony's living conditions in class terms appealing mainly to workers and farmers of all ethnic groups. Although the PAC was multiracial in composition, its leader, Dr. Jagan, was an East Indian—a fact that would compel the movement to recruit an African leader of equivalent standing after its losses in the 1947 general elections. 5 0 That search led to the selection of Forbes Burnham, an outstanding lawyer who had returned from London to Guyana in 1949. In January 1950 the PAC converted itself to the People's Progressive party (PPP) and reaffirmed its commitment to a socialist society. 51 New general elections were scheduled for April 1953 under a constitutional arrangement that conceded universal adult suffrage and a limited cabinet ministerial system. Full participation in collective decisionmaking was finally at hand. The PPP was victorious, winning eighteen out of twenty-four seats in the unicameral legislature. The only explanation for such an overwhelming victory was the extensive collaboration of African and Indian constituents inspired by the biracial leadership of Jagan and Burnham. 52 The period 1950-1953 was the Golden Age of racial harmony in Guyana. The control system had virtually collapsed while local leaders assumed power. Within five months after assuming office the PPP suffered a major setback. During its one hundred thirty-three day rule, the PPP openly threatened to nationalize key foreign companies and radically rearrange the color-class system. 53 In response to the prodding of the plantocracy the British government suspended the constitution and evicted the PPP from office. In turn, this triggered a major crisis within the PPP as explanations were sought for the ouster. Two main factions surfaced, one supporting Jagan and the other Burnham. New elections were slated for 1957, and in the elections a more radical socialist Jaganite faction faced a moderate Burnhamite faction. Apart from their ideological stance, the Jagan and Burnham groupings obtained support mainly from Indian and African constitutents respectively. In the elections, at the grassroots, racial appeals were widely used, and the crosscommunal goodwill between Africans and Indians was shattered. Jagan won the elections, but as premier of Guyana he was now presiding over a state whose communal fabric was inflamed by electoral politics that pitted one ethnic segment against the other. 54
170
Ralph R. Premdas
Between 1957 and 1963 unprecedented racial turmoil racked Guyana and resulted in the removal of Jagan from power and the acquisition of leadership by Burnham. Burnham criticized Jagan's party for its pro-Indian government and its discrimination against Afro-Guyanese. 5 5 Burnham's party, the People's National Congress (PNC), collaborated with a third splinter party, the United Force (UF), headed by Portuguese businessman Peter D'aguiar who appealed mainly to Europeans, Portuguese, Chinese, mixed races, Amerindians, and a small group of middle class Africans and Indians. In the 1961 general elections Jagan's PPP defeated both Burnham's PNC and D'aguiar's UF under the old first-past-the-post simple plurality electoral system. Jagan had obtained a disproportionately higher number of seats measured against his percentage of the popular votes. This fact served as the excuse that prompted the Opposition into a sustained set of severe attacks, strikes, demonstrations, and disruptions intended to destabilize the Jagan government and enable the British Colonial Office to alter the electoral system to one of proportional representation. 56 With Jagan's group holding slightly less than 50 percent of the adult votes, Burnham and D'aguiar barely defeated Jagan's PPP in the 1964 elections. Ehtnic strife grew to fearsome proportions. At one point virtual civil war ensued, and mixed Indian-African villages became places of terror where British troops were required to maintain communal peace. 57 The role of ethnic competition is worth brief analysis because it entailed the use of the public bureaucracy as a major instrument in the removal of a government. The joint biracial leadership of the independence movement by Jagan and Burnham concealed the fact that the government bureaucracy had come to be dominated by Africans. The public and teaching services had emerged as the largest employers in the country, and, more importantly, they were staffed by the best educated and organized persons in the nonwhite population. If any regime wished to govern peacefully, it could not incur the wrath of the public bureaucracy. In Guyana's communal context this basic fact of power became imbued with racial motivations. When Jagan and Burnham were together, the public service cooperated. Competition for state job opportunities was substantially based on merit. But after the eviction of the unified independence movement from office and the rise of racially based parties, the bureaucracy assumed an active interventionist role in partisan politics. After the split in the national government, it was the Negro section of the population that was more advantageously placed in control of the machinery of government. This was seen in the fact that, although the Jaganite faction of the PPP defeated the Burnhamite faction at the elections held in 1957 and participated in the government as the majority party, it was by no means in a position of strength. Quite apart from operating in a colonial situation in which the British
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government possessed wide powers of control over the governmental machinery, after a time the Jaganite regime became keenly aware of its lack of support from some of the crucial institutions and groups in the public bureaucracy. The People's National Congress (the Burnhamite faction) though not in government, was nevertheless in a position to embarrass and frustrate it.5®
Jagan was in a quandary. Although he professed to be a socialist and recruited a racially mixed cabinet, he still had to meet some of the demands for jobs, services, and projects by Indian political constituents. The Jagan regime, coming to power in 1957, therefore embarked on a set of policies that sought to eliminate Christian control of schools and to orient economic planning in favor of rural industries.59 Burnham's party protested vigorously against the "agricultural bent" of the PPP's policies, charging the Jaganites with running an Indian "Coolie government" and "a Rice Government." 60 The Jagan government also sought to rectify the ethnic imbalance in recruitment of the public service. In particular, Jagan feared the fact that the stability of his government depended heavily on an African-dominated police force. In 1961 the Jagan government persuaded the British to accept that the victor in the 1961 elections would lead the country into independence. This was a most crucial fact, for the party in power after independence could redefine the rules of the game and remain in power indefinitely. For the highly politicized and insecure Indian and African segments, the 1961 elections could mean the indefinite domination of one group by the other. 61 It was on this vital issue that the African-dominated public service would be courted, politicized, and mobilized against the Jagan government. Two major unions, the Civil Service Association (CSA) and the Federation of Unions of Government employees (FUGE), both African controlled, represented public servants. Demonstrations and strikes in 1962 and 1964 against the Jagan regime witnessed the conversion of a neutral civil service into a politicized instrument of power in ethnically motivated partisan politics. The events between 1962 and 1964 which all but brought down the Jagan government was dramatic illustration of this [politicization of the public service]. The PNC opposition was effectively using institutions over which it had control or influence in an attempt to embarrass and ultimately defeat the government—a fact of which it made no secret—and the Civil Service Association (C.S.A.) was one such institution. The political nature of the C.S.A.'s involvement could also be seen in part from the fact that although many of the issues remained unresolved after the change of government in 1964, no similar action has so far been taken by the C.S.A. against the PNC government.
172
Ralph R. Premdas
The Burnham government that succeeded Jagan in 1964 itself would suffer from similar boycotts and crippling strikes, but this time the mobilizer would be the Jagan forces who in opposition deployed the sugar industry unions, which were overwhelmingly Indian dominated. The fact that Africans resided mainly in the urban areas, especially in Georgetown, and Indians in the rural areas, partly restrained the interracial conflict. However, few racially interlocking endeavors existed to provide meaningful moderation in the conflict. Communal strife consequently became polarized, a special variant of intransigence locked in an uncompromising zero-sum struggle. 63 It would be difficult to predict exactly what alterations in the state bureaucracy and in the allocation of resources might have occurred under the racially unified PPP government of 1953. One could legitimately expect the allocation of government expenditures would have been diverted away from serving the interests of the plantocracy to serving the interests of the nonwhite working class. In their brief one hundred thirty-three day interregnum, the PPP had already signalled its intention to dismantle the monopolistic power of the sugar planters. But apart from seeking to reorient broad governmental programs away from the European minority interests, the PPP government had hardly undertaken the task of redefining the role of the bureaucracy to reconcile the communal structure of the society with the regime's egalitarian values. Table 7.6
Racial Composition of Staff Bnployed in all Ministries and Departments in British Guiana Negro
Indian
European
Senior staff. i.e., senior clerk level up.
335
227
37
20
255
68
1
Clerical service below senior clerk level.
697
543
1
17
222
23
5
Others below senior clerk level. 6327
3830
2
69
843
68
282
40
106
1320
159
288
0.29
0.76
9.52
1.15
2.08
Total
7359
4600
Percent of total
53.05
33.16
Portuguese
Mixed
Source: Report of the British Guiana Caimission of Inquiry Commission of Jurists, Geneva, 1965), p. 84.
Chinese
Amerindian
(International
Hence, no formula for interethnic sharing of the benefits of government administration and programs was enunciated. Consequently, the drift characteristic of the latter part of the previous period prevailed. This essentially meant that a modified meritocracy practiced according to European values persisted. In practical terms, those who acquired English ways and
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schooling obtained a head start over those who lagged. When Jagan and Burnham parted company and formed their own parties, the communal conflict spilled over into the government administrative machinery. Upon capturing power in 1957 the Jaganite faction sought to rectify the racial imbalance in the public service. The Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) was invited to do a survey of the problem (see Table 7.6 for the results of the commission's survey). Clearly, Indians, who constituted about 51 percent of the population, obtained only about 33 percent of the jobs, while Africans and mixed races, who formed about 40 percent of the population, obtained about 53 percent of the available jobs. Europeans still controlled about five times as many jobs relative to their ratio in the population, and these jobs were among the most senior positions. In part, the political contest waged among the racially divided population was not only about jobs and government allocations, but more significantly about averting ethnic domination. Consequently, in a tense situation of allout communal confrontation, the ethnic composition of the police and coercive forces came to play a pivotal role. More so then in any other government institution, the ICJ found the gravest imbalance here (tables 7.7 and 7.8 demonstrate this imbalance). These tables show that in the security forces Indians constituted 20 percent and Africans and mixed races about 78 percent of those employed. Professor Enloe offered an historical explanation for the imbalance: "Police were recruited overwhelmingly from Africans, presumably because they were numerous in the towns and because they met the physical requirements such as height and chest measurement which smaller Indian frames could not." 64 Overall, in the public service including the police and security divisions, no principle of sharing or proportionality operated. As Europeans left the country, the contest for jobs was in the open competitive market among the nonwhite communal segments. At an early part of Guyana's history, IndoAfrican conflict was contained by the fact that these communal segments lived apart. But toward the turn of the century Indians began coming to towns to compete for jobs and scarce urban-based opportunities. The conflict between these two groups, then, at least in part, has an objective basis in the fight for scarce resources. Table 7.9 illustrates Guyana's demographic settlement and shows that by 1960 Indians had become nearly one-fourth of the urban population. There they would seek out skills and training and thus further intensify the conditions of the interethnic conflict. If Africans dominated public service jobs, then Indians did so in agriculture and business. Table 7.10 summarizes several critical aspects of racial distribution in employment: first, African domination of public service departments; second, Indian domination in rural land development; and third, Indian challenge in local government and teachers services. These figures are
174
Ralph R. Premdas
Table 7.7 Racial Composition of the Security Forces in British Guiana Negro
Indian
2122
European
Portuguese
Mixed
Others
710
7
28
149
45
507
51
6
4
3
3
Special service unit 72
72
-
-
2
Police force Volunteer force
-
Total
2701
833
13
32
154
48
Percent of total
73.5
19.9
0.3
0.8
4.2
1.3
Source: Report of the British Guiana Ccrmission of Inquiry (International Commission of Jurists, Geneva), p. 49.
Table 7.8 Distribution of Security Forces by Rank and Race in British Guiana, 1965 (in percent) European
Portuguese
Mixed
Others
9.1 21.9
1.2
1.0 0.1
7.9 4.3
0.5 0.9
83.9
5.8
4.4
1.5
2.9
1.5
89.5
9.8
0.5
0.2
Special service unit Officers Constables
50.0 51.3
50.0 47.0
Special constabulary Officers Constables
55.2 74.2
13.8 21.9
Prisons Officers Prison officers
81.8 83.9
16.1
Fire Brigade Officers Firemen
85.2 61.1
3.7 21.4
Total Officers Others
79.4 75.1
9.4 20.6
Police force Officers Constables Volunteer force Officers Lance Corporals & Privates
Negro
Indian
80.3 72.8
1.7
0.2
13.8 0.2
17.2 3.4 18.8
1.6
1.8 1.6
9.2 15.9
1.6 0.2
7.5 3.5
0.6 0.5
Source: Report of the British Guiana Ccnniission of Inquiry (International Ccrmission of Jurists, 1965), p. 172.
Politics of Preference in the Caribbean
175
all related in turn to the ethnic composition of the population and the urbanrural settlement patterns. In brief, greater Indian participation in the public service and the movement of Indians to urban areas triggered intense ethnic competition for economic opportunities, but without a restraining sharing formula such as proportionality, the contest became politicized and violent. Table 7.9
Distribution of Population by Race in Sugar Estates, Villages, and Urban Centers of British Guiana, 1891-1960 (in percent)
Year of Census
Negro
Indian
Sugar estates 1891 1921 1960
14.44 13.96 14.74
79.36 81.77 80.45
0 .93 0..72 0..58
1 .12 0.39 0,.18
Villages 1891 1921
61.20 49.86
26.70 41.16
0..33 0..22
Urban Centers 1891 1921 1946 1960
47.19 50.59 54.43 49.00
8.44 11.34 15.68 22.13
5..02 3.,45 1.,68 1.,22
White
Portuguese
Mixed
Chinese
Other
2 .42 2 .29 3 .35
1 .59 0,.76 0.38
0.14 0.12 0.31
4,.31 2..15
6,.11 5,.48
1,.03 0..77
0.32 0.36
10..23 8..54 6.,04 3.,78
27..03 24..08 19..57 21.,72
1.,50 1.,60 2.,20 1.81
0.59 0.40 0.39 0.34
Source: Report of the British Guiana Ccnmission of Inquiry (International Ccnmission of Jurists, 1965), p. 164.
The Postindependence
Racially Repressive
Control
System
After Jagan was ousted from power in 1964, the new coalition government led by Forbes Burnham appointed and accepted the recommendations of the International Commission of Jurists to rectify the ethnic "imbalance" in the public services. In a number of areas in particular, affirmative action was prescribed to offset the overrepresentation of Africans and mixed races. R. S. Milne has noted, for example, that "the Commission recommended that for the next five years 75% of the recruits to the police force should be Indian and the government accepted this principle." 65 If the new regime had honored its commitment to establish an equitable balance in the public services and to restore racial harmony by implementing racially nondiscriminatory programs, then Guyana would have embarked on a future of ethnic stability. For a while during the life of the coalition government (1964-1968) when Burnham's political partner, Portuguese businessman Peter D'aguiar, retained much influence in government policies, the rhetoric of ethnic balance was still credible. But the dissolution of the coalition in 1968 and the seizure of power by Burnham's party radically altered the prospect of ethnic parity. A new era of ethnic domination was
176
Ralph R. Premdas
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Politics of Preference in the Caribbean
177
launched making the preindependence colonial practices of racial repression appear minor by comparison. 66 The fundamental imbalance in ethnic representation that prevailed at independence remained in place throughout Burnham's reign and thereafter. In effect, in this period of Guyanese history, one nonwhite communal group repressed another. The color-class system of social differentiation was replaced by a new system of domination. No accommodative formula such as consociational democracy emerged to restrain communal chauvinism and moderate ethnic competition. When the new government of Forbes Burnham acceded to power in 1964, three major objectives informed the coalition regime's platform. First, Burnham's main interest was to protect his communal section from ethnic domination. Second, Burnham's coalition partner, Peter D'aguiar, who mainly represented the small residual non-African and non-Indian communal groups, sought to protect private property from nationalization and preserve the status quo with its entrenched color-based system of social stratification. Third, the United States, which assisted the coalition government in acquiring power, was concerned with extinguishing all socialist and communist influences in Guyana. 67 The first item on the new government's agenda was to restore domestic tranquility in the wake of the virtual ethnic civil war that erupted in Guyana during the previous three years. But this inevitably meant that Jagan's Indianbased party, the PPP (Jagan retained the old 1953 PPP label for his faction, while Burnham named his faction the People's National Congress, or PNC), bore the brunt of the government's attack. A new control system, more comprehensive and draconian than its moribund plantation antecedent, was devised. Under a National Security Act and a state of emergency, Jagan's party activists were ruthlessly suppressed; many were arrested and held in detention for long periods of time without trial. The communal factor inevitably pervaded the entire law enforcement exercise and cast a dark shadow of suspicion over the government's motives. It was during this period, in 1965, that the Guyana Defense Force (GDF) was formed; it would add to the ruling regime's coercive capabilities. Like the police force, the GDF was recruited mainly from the African communal section. 68 In the end, this recruitment pattern would provide a powerful base not only for the protection of the African community from ethnic domination, but also for the maintenance of the African-led government in power. To reconstruct Guyana from the ravages of the previous years' ethnic confrontation, the PNC regime realized that multiracial participation was necessary if only because the vital agricultural sector of the economy was under Indian control. 69 Burnham pleaded for cooperation and appointed a few Indians to his cabinet. But like Jagan, who had made similar calls for multiracial cooperation, Burnham learned that appeals to race during election campaigns, even though covert and subtle, were not easily forgotten.
178
Ralph R. Premdas
Further, the party in power was captive to its communalist base. Followers demanded patronage at the expense of a vanquished ethnic enemy. To deny them would be to risk losing political support; to cater to them would result in the further alienation of the opposition communal group. The communal monster surreptitiously invoked to obtain votes and manipulated to maintain power would return to haunt the government that acquired power. To Jagan, the Burnham-D'aguiar government was illegitimate. He refused to cooperate with the government and instead continued to call strikes, demonstrations, and protests. Burnham was not happy with D'aguiar, his coalition partner, who controlled the Ministry of Finance and restrained the PNC from liberally rewarding its communal supporters. About six months before the 1968 general elections, the PNC engineered a number of parliamentary defections from the PPP and gained a majority in the National Assembly and sole control of the government. It then reconstituted the electoral commission with its own partisan sympathizers and tampered with the electoral machinery. In what would be established incontrovertibly as rigged elections involving tens of thousands of fictitious votes, the PNC won an absolute majority of seats in the 1968 elections. 70 The electoral fraud was perpetrated under the supervision of politicized and communally lopsided police and military forces. The "seizure of power" in 1968 was a watershed in ethnic relations in Guyana. In a racially plural society, the PNC representing a minority African group (32 percent) grabbed the government. To avert internal disruption the PNC government purged the critical pillars of its power—the coercive forces and the civil service—of most of their non-African elements. The control system was being tightened and made increasingly reliant on naked force and terror for its survival. The ethnic imbalance in the public service was exacerbated, and the regime refused to permit impartial examination of its employment record. Regime legitimacy was now lost, and the state coercive machinery was the main guardian of PNC's power. To be sure, the PNC government continued formally to espouse the ideals of racial equality and did recruit a number of prominent Indians to highly visible positions. Where communal malcontents did not strike and demonstrate, many migrated to Europe and North America. This was especially true in the case of Europeans, Chinese, and Portuguese. Table 7.11 shows the massive migration of these groups from Guyana, leaving a society predominantly polarized between Africans and Indians. When Burnham seized power in 1968, he realized that the economy was essentially controlled by his political opponents. For his control system to survive, he needed to rectify this problem in his favor, preferably to reverse the roles. Gradually he abandoned the capitalist structure of the economy, which favored businessmen, big property owners, and land cultivators, and whose membership was mainly non-African. 71 Burnham's own survival
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179
depended on his addressing the needs of his communal constituents. Toward the end of 1969, then, the PNC regime adopted a socialist framework for Guyana's reconstruction and in 1970 declared Guyana a "cooperative republic." 72 Table 7.11 Composition of Population by Race (in percent)
Year
Amerindian Chinese East African Mixed Portuguese European Other Total Indian
1891
1.4
38.9
42.7
10.7
4.5
1.7
0.1
100
1921
3.1
0.9
42.0
39.4
10.3
3.1
1.1
0.2
100
1946
4.3
0.9
43.5
38.2
10.0
2.3
0.7
0.1
100
1960
4.5
0.7
47.8
32.8
12.0
1.5
0.6
0.1
100
1970
4.4
0.6
51.0
30.7
11.4
1.3
0.5
0.1
100
Source: Census Bulletin No. 2, Population Census 1970 (Georgetown, 1970).
The economy was heretofore to be founded on cooperatives as the main instrument of production, distribution, and consumption. Thereafter, the regime, due to a variety of circumstances that have been recounted elsewhere, floundered from crisis to crisis, lost U.S. support, and suffered from persistent boycotts by the non-African population, particularly Indian sugar and rice farmers. 73 It ran a gauntlet besieged by high unemployment (20-30 percent), double-digit inflation, prohibitive fuel costs, demonstration, boycotts, and strikes. A vicious cycle of poverty was created by a pattern of polarized and unstable ethnic politics intermixed with socialist ideological and programmatic justifications. Between 1971 and 1976 the government nationalized nearly all foreign firms, thereby bringing 80 percent of the economy under state control. 74 This unwieldy public sector provided the job opportunities necessary to quell the increasing demands of PNC supporters for patronage. 75 When the Burnham regime nationalized the economy, this grossly enlarged the state bureaucratic apparatus. Government ministries increased from twelve in 1968 to twenty-one in 1977. State corporations proliferated, but most were placed under an umbrella state agency called GUYSTAC, which controlled twentynine corporations and several companies valued at more than $500 million(G). 76 The government also ran five banks, three bauxite companies, and the gigantic sugar corporation that at one time dominated the country's entire economy and occupied its best cultivable lands. 77 Burnham himself admitted that "we don't believe in the neutrality of the Civil Service." 78 He argued that the neutrality concept was a colonial anachronism irrelevant to Guyana's socialist revolution. But the bulging public bureaucracy was not transformed into socialist organizations.
180
Ralph R. Premdas
Evidence that bourgeois rule persists in Guyana is found most abundantly in the nationalized sector. In all state-owned enterprises, traditional hierarchical methods of decision-making remained firmly in place. In none of the nationalized industries has meaningful workers' participation in decision-making been institutionalised. 7 9
There is no question, however, that the country's economy had been radically altered. According to Marxist scholar Jay Mandle, Guyana's rulers were not socialist but racialist in attitude and ideology: The older colonial ruling class and its business firms have been banished and decision-making power now rests with a local elite of state and cooperative-based managers. In the Guyanese context, this assumes the form of the emergence of an urban Afro-Guyanese leadership under the auspices of the People's National Congress.® 0
Precise figures on the relative ethnic distribution of employees in the Guyana public service were hard to come by after 1970. Doubtlessly, the African segment had attained unprecedented representation in the public bureaucracy. Preference policies for Afro-Guyanese were jusitified as necessary correctives to previous anti-African bias. Discrimination in favor of Afro-Guyanese in the public corporations and other quasi-govemmental services is a response to discrimination against Afro-Guyanese in other areas such as businesses, banks, and medical appointments in some hospitals. In this view, preference for Africans in the expanding public and quasi-public sector acts as a counterweight to the imbalance in the private sector, thus producing some kind of overall balance. 8 1
The police, security, and armed forces, in particular, were expanded to protect the besieged PNC government. In 1964, the police and auxiliary armed forces numbered about 3,770; by 1977 they were estimated to be 21,751. 82 In 1964 there was one military person to 284 civilians; in 1976 there was one for every 37 citizens. 83 The budgetary allocation for the military rose from 0.21 percent in 1965 to 8 percent in 1973 and then to 14.2 percent in 1976. That is, the increase has been more than 4,000 percent. 84 More than any other public service department, the police and coercive forces were overwhelmed by Afro-Guyanese. Burnham named himself chairman of the Defense Board where he took personal control over promotions and a p p o i n t m e n t s . 8 5 The main assignment of the armed forces was to supplement the police constabulary in maintaining law and order. For a regime to maintain and extend Guyana's economic development, it would require programs that encouraged agricultural production. Guyana lacks
Politics of Preference in the Caribbean
181
even a minor industrial capacity, and its mining sector is small. The country's capacity to feed itself depends on agricultural production. Sugar production is the backbone of the economic system as a whole, and sugar workers are mainly Indians. In the mid-1970s the sugar companies, all foreign owned, were nationalized. The next most significant agricultural industry was rice, and this was almost wholly under Indian peasant production. When Jagan was in power he provided several programs, such as credits, subsidies, marketing, technical assistance, and drainage and irrigation, to the rice industry. Hence, the PNC labelled the Jagan regime a "rice government" partisan to Indian communal interests. When the PNC acceded to power, the rice growers were victimized through the elimination of most state subsidies. Rice production plummeted to half its original size. The Government's Rice Marketing Board, which had a monopoly in purchasing the farmers' rice, was reorganized and staffed with PNC personnel. Rice farmers, under Jagan's instruction, boycotted rice production and created grave shortages in the country. Like the sugar industry, rice became a political and ethnic football. The PNC government wanted to eliminate its dependence on Indian agriculturalists for much of the country's food. In 1970, then, under its announced policy of "cooperative socialism," the PNC attempted to locate landless Afro-Guyanese on state lands previously leased to Indian farmers. The Indian stranglehold on peasant agriculture provided Jagan's PPP with a powerful base of support. The PNC's strategy for redistributing land and subsidies failed because rice cultivation required years of experience for success. Despite the PNC's attempts to victimize Indian rice farmers, the PNC continued to appeal to these very farmers to produce. But their cooperation was not forthcoming: Fundamentally at issue here is the nature of the PNC government. Briefly put, it is a regime which is manager-dominated, urban and predominantly Afro-Guyanese. The peasant and agricultural section of the population—largely of Indo-Guyanese descent—is inadequately represented within the government ranks. As a result, the ruling party and the government is poorly equipped either to mobilize the rural labor force or to call upon its good-will in attempting to transform agriculture. 8 6
When the Burnham regime declared Guyana a cooperative republic the cooperative was intended as a vehicle to give the African section meaningful power and participation in the country's economy. 87 Several cooperatives were established to compete with the remaining private sector enterprises, but, most importantly, in practice the cooperative provided a formidable ideological justification for what was in fact an attempt to wrest control over critical parts of the economy from the non-African population. For the most part the cooperatives established after Burnham's accession to power failed
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Ralph R. Premdas
because of inefficiency and corruption. This factor has largely been responsible for the decline in living standards in the country as a whole. Party and ethnicity variables have combined to deny the African section of the population the economic promise of participation and power that the cooperative program envisaged. The overall policy output of the PNC regime, even if it were to be interpreted foremost in socialist terms, pointed indisputably to ethnic favoritism and preference. The polarization of the races was probably attributable as much to ethnic chauvinism among PNC activists as to PPP boycotts and strikes against the government. The economic situation deteriorated so badly that toward the end of the 1970s everyone was adversely affected, regardless of ethnic membership. Strikes and demonstrations and other challenges to Burnham's power increasingly came from all ethnic segments. The arsenal of coercive powers previously used against Indians was now used against African dissidents also. The judiciary also came under the PNC regime's direct influence. The appointment of judges and magistrates was routinely based on party loyalty.88 Thus, the use of the courts to challenge the legality and constitutionality of the regime's decisions was futile. In 1978 the government altered the constitution so that the appointment of judges and magistrates fell under the purview of President Burnham. The new constitutional system inaugurated an executive presidency that was given to Burnham. The judicial system, then, became integrated into the regime's coercive and control arsenal to be used against political dissidents. The trade union sector remained problematic for the regime. Partly because of the structure of the economy and the history of ethnic residential and occupational patterns, agricultural workers and their unions fell under Jagan's control. Even where Jagan's forces were suppressed, rural workers adamantly remained under his sway. Although the PNC government had become accustomed to opposition-inspired sugar strikes, it was not able to cope with similar actions emanating from its own community. Burnham's repressive regime was presiding over an economy that had deteriorated so badly that large numbers of its African supporters had also become disenchanted. To combat this problem, the regime resorted to assassination of some opposition activists including Dr. Walter Rodney, the Afro-Guyanese Marxist scholar who was particularly effective in mobilizing African workers against the regime. 8 9 The regime could not afford this breach in its communal ranks. To minimize this possibility, the PNC regime passed new legislation in 1984 that made it difficult legally for state workers and civil servants to go on strike.
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Conclusion The politics of preference in an ethnically divided state skirts at all times the fundamental systemic issues of legitimacy, unity, and stability. The more politicized the population, the more likely it is to perceive political problemsolving through the prism of ethnicity. What complicates the allocative process is the varying conceptions of equity that each community may espouse. Clearly, an accommodative solution is hard to reach, and even if arrived at, it may not easily survive changes in demography, new claims, and grievances. Any governing regime in a multiethhnic state runs the risk of charges of communal prejudice in collective decisionmaking. In an environment of poverty, this problem is further accentuated. Unlike a hegemonial control system, an accommodative governmental arrangement in a democratic order is immensely more difficult to forge and sustain. The constraints of poverty apart, special qualities in leadership are required to maintain a sharing outlook and a pragmatic approach to issues that are often imbued with emotive symbolism. Faced with rising expectations, a limited and underdeveloped resource base, and incessant claims for ethnic distributive justice, most Third World states succumb to the temptation of repressive rule. A control system appears easier to run. In Guyana the regime of President Burnham and that of his successors (after Burnham's death in late 1985) failed to reflect in their decisionmaking and administration the sociocultural composition of an ethnically divided society. The nationalization of the economy exacerbated the issue of ethnic preference because it created a congested area of ethnic competition and overexposed the government to criticism and acts of noncooperation. The ruling regime responded to challenges by imposing further controls, which incurred more noncompliance and thus required greater budgetary allocations for security. This cycle points to self-destruction. In Third World states, as in Guyana, the control system of administration misallocates scarce resources and in the long run can only perpetuate conditions of poverty and intensify ethnic rivalry for scarce resources.
Notes 1. S e e Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976). 2. See Alvin Rabushka and Howard Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability (Colombus, Ohio: Bobbs Merrill, 1972). 3. R. T. Smith, British Guiana (London: Oxford University Press, 1962); and Leo Despres, Cultural Pluralism and National Politics in British Guiana (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).
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4. Cynthia Enloe, Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973); and Leo Despres, "Ethnicity and Resource Allocation in Guyanese Society," Leo Depres, ed., Ethnicity and Resource Allocation in Plural Societies (The Hague: Moughton, 1975). 5. Samuel Huntington, "Foreword," E. A. Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies, Harvard University Center for International Affairs, Occasional Paper no. 29 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1972). 6. See "Group Demands" in Chapter 2 of this volume. 7. M. G. Smith, "Institutional and Political Conditions of Pluralism," L. Kuper and M. G. Smith, eds., Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), pp. 26-63. 8. I. Lustick, "Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism Versus Control," World Politics 31, no. 3 (April 1979); S. Smooha, "Control of Minorities in Israel and Northern Ireland," Comparative Studies in History and. Society 22, no. 2 (April 1980); H. Adam, Modernising Racial Domination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971); and Rothchild (Chapter 2 of this volume). See also P. Hintzen and R. Premdas, "Guyana: Coercion and Control in Political Change," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 3 (August 1982). 9. R. S. Milne, Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), p. 176. 10. For a discussion of "representative bureaucracy," see Milton J. Esman, "Public Administration and the Struggle for Shares in Ethnically and Racially Plural Societies" (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 31 August - 3 September, 1978). 11. A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977). 12. B. Barry, "The Consociational Model and Its Dangers," European Journal of Political Research 3, no. 4 (December 1970); J. Steiner, "The Principles of Majority and Proportionality," British Journal of Political Science 2, no. 1 (January 1971); and Rothchild, Chapter 2, this volume. 13. Rothchild, Chapter 2 of this volume. 14. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London: Andre Deutsch, 1964). 15. Despres, Cultural Pluralism, p. 45. 16. Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, p. 7. 17. James Rodway, Guiana: British, Dutch, and French (London: T. Fisher and Unwin, 1912), p. 224. 18. Alan Young, The Approaches to Local Self-Government in British Guiana (London: Longmans, Green, 1958), p. 7. 19. Smith, Pluralism in Africa, pp. 43-44. 20. Dwarka Nath, A History of Indians in British Guiana (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1950), pp. 179-180. 21. Chandra Jayawardena, Conflict and Solidarity on a Guiana Plantation (London: Athlone Press, 1963), p. 14. 22. Smith, Pluralism in Africa, pp. 41-42. 23. Rawle Farley, "The Rise of the Peasantry in British Guiana," Social and Economic Studies 2, no. 4 (June 1954): 95. 24. Young, The Approaches to Local Self-Government, p. 23. 25. Ibid.
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26. Report of the British Guiana Commission of Inquiry on Racial Problems in the Public Service (Geneva: International Commission of Jurists, 1965), p. 164. (Hereafter referred to as the ICJ Report.) 27. Ibid. 28. G. W. Roberts, "Some Observations on the Population of British Guiana," Population Studies 2 (September 1948): 186-187. 29. ICJ Report, p. 165. 30. Smith, Pluralism in Africa, pp. 42-44. 31. See J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice (London: Cambridge University Press, 1948), pp. 304-312. The "plural society" concept is elaborated by M. G. Smith, ibid. 32. Depres, Cultural Pluralism, p. 37. 33. Alan H. Adamson, Sugar Without Slaves (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 241. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., p. 242. 36. Despres, Cultural Pluralism, p. 39. 37. Ibid., p. 40. 38. Cecil Clementi, A Constitutional History of British Guiana (London: 1937), p. 369. 39. C. Enloe, "Civilian Control of the Military: Implications in the Plural Societies of Guyana and Malaysia" (Paper presented at the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, SUNY-Buffalo, October 18-19, 1974, mimeograph), p. 27. 40. H. Lutchman, "Race and Bureaucracy in Guyana," Journal of Comparative Administration 4, no. 2 (August 1972): 230. 41. For the historical background to educational development in Guyana, see M. K. Bacchus, Education and Socio-Cultural Integration in a Plural Society (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1970). 42. Raj K. Vasil, Politics in Bi-Racial Societies (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1984), p. 69. 43. Bacchus, Education and Socio-Cultural Integration. 44. See Ralph R. Premdas, Racial Politics in Guyana (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver Press, 1973); J. E. Greene, Race vs. Politics in Guyana (ISER-UWI Mona, Jamaica: 1974); and Peter Newman, British Guiana: Problems of Cohesion in an Immigrant Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). 45. Paul Singh, Guyana: Socialism in a Plural Society (London: Fabian Society, 1972). 46. See Ralph R. Premdas, "The Rise of the First Mass-Based Multi-Racial Party in Guyana," Caribbean Quarterly 20 (September-December 1974). 47. Ashton Chase, A History of Trade Unionism in Guyana (Georgetown: New Guiana Co., 1964). 48. Cheddi Jagan, Forbidden Freedom: The Story of British Guiana (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1954). 49. "The Aims of the Political Affairs Committee," The PAC Bulletin, Nov. 6, 1946, p. 1. 50. Premdas, "The Rise of the First Mass-Based Multi-Racial Party," pp. 10-13. 51. "Aims and Programme of the People's Progressive Party," Thunder 1, no. 4, (April 1950), pp. 6-7.
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52. Premdas, "The Rise of the First Mass-Based Multi-Racial Party," pp. 10-15. 53. Ashton Chase, 133 Days Towards Freedom in Guyana (Georgetown: New Guiana Co., 1953). 54. See Ralph R. Premdas, "Election and Political Campaigns in a Racially Bifurcated State," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 12 (August 1972). 55. See "Money Being Spent on Majority Party's Stronghold," New Nation, Jan. 24, 1959; and "We Want Nationalism Not Sectionalism," New Nation, Feb. 1, 1958. 56. See Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 779. 57. See Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: Violence and Democracy in a Communal State," Plural Societies 12, nos. 3-4 (Autumn-Winter 1981); and Peter Simms, Trouble in Guyana (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966). 58. Lutchman, "Race and Bureaucracy," p. 242. 59. See R. Hope and W. C. David, "Planning For Development in Guyana: The Experience from 1945 to 1973," Inter-American Economic Affairs (Spring 1974). 60. See Ralph R. Premdas, "Competitive Party Organizations and Political Integration in a Racially Fragmented State: The Case of Guyana," Caribbean Studies 12, no. 4 (January 1973), especially footnotes 30 and 32. 61. Despres, Cultural Pluralism and National Policies in British Guiana; also see Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: Communal Conflict, Socialism, and Political Reconciliation," Inter-American Affairs 30, no. 8 (Spring 1977). 62. Lutchman, "Race and Bureaucracy," p. 242. Also see Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in British Guiana in Feb. 1962 (London: HMSO, 2849, 1965); and Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: Déstabilisation in the Western Hemisphere," Caribbean Quarterly 25, no. 3 (March 1980). 63. See Milne, Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States. 64. Enloe, "Civilian Control of the Military," p. 27. 65. Milne, Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States, p. 146. 66. See Percy Hintzen and Ralph Premdas, "Guyana: Coercion and Control in Political Change," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 3 (August 1982). 67. Drew Pearson, "U.S. Faces Line Holding Decision," Washington Post, May 31, 1964; Ralph R. Premdas, "Guyana: Socialist Reconstruction or Political Opportunism," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 20, no. 2 (May 1978); and Ralph Premdas, "Guyana's Foreign Policy: Ideology and Change," World Affairs (Fall 1982). 68. Enloe, "Civilian Control of the Military"; see also her Ethnic Soldiers (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1979). 69. See A. Kundu, "Rice in the British Caribbean Islands and British Guiana 1950-75," Social and Economic Studies 13, no. 2 (June 1964); also Eric R. Hanley, "Rice, Politics and Development in Guyana," I. Oxall et al., eds., Beyond the Sociology of Development (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), pp. 131-154. 70. Adrian Mitchell, "Jagan and Burnham: It's Polling Day Tomorrow. Have Guyanese Elections Already Been Decided in Britain?" The Sunday Times (London), Dec. 15, 1968.
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71. Jay Mandle, "Continuity and Change in Guyanese Underdevelopment," Monthly Review 21, no. 2 (June 1976). 72. See Forbes Burnham, A Destiny to Mould (London: Longman Caribbean, 1970); and F. Burnham, Towards a Cooperative Republic (Georgetown: Chronicle Publishers, 1969). 73. Premdas, "Guyana: Socialist Reconstruction or Political Opportunism?" 74. Ibid. 75. Percy Hintzen, "The Dynamics of Ethnicity, Class, and International Capitalist Penetration in Political Economy: Guyana and Trinidad" (Paper presented to the American Political Science Association, August 31-September 3, 1979). 76. Hintzen, "Guyana: Coercion and Control." 77. Ibid.; also see "Farewell to Bookers Empire," Caribbean Contact (March 1976): 10. 78. S. Narine, "Public Servants Not Forced to Join PNC," Graphic (Guyana), Dec. 20, 1974, p. 1. 79. Mandle, "Continuity and Change," p. 6. 80. Ibid., p. 11. 81. Milne, Politics in Ethnically Bipolar States, p. 147. 82. See George K. Danns, "Militarisation and Development: An Experiment in Nation-Building in Guyana," Transition (Guyana) 1, no. 1 (January 1978). 83. Ibid. 84. See James A. Sackey, "Dependence, Underdevelopment and SocialistOriented Transformation in Guyana," Inter-American Affairs 33, no. 1 (Summer 1979). 85. See Enloe, "Civilian Control of the Military." 86. Jay Mandle, "The Post-Colonial Mode of Production in Guyana" (Temple University, Department of Economics, 1979, mimeographed). 87. Milne, "Continuity and Change," p. 147. 88. See David DeCaries, "Intense Political Pressures on Guyana's Judicial System," Caribbean Contact (June 1979). 89. Ralph Premdas, "Communal Politics: Rodney's Guyana Revisited" Revista Americana (February 1985).
Contributors Charles H. Kennedy is Assistant Professor of Politics at Wake Forest University. He previously taught at Bowdoin College and held a Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship in Pakistan. His research interests include bureaucracy, policy, and Islamic jurisprudence. His publications include Bureaucracy in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1986) and he has contributed to a number of books and journals. Gordon P. Means is Professor of Political Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has engaged in field research in Malaysia, Indonesia, and India, and he counts among his current research interests the politics of ethnic and tribal minorities, and development policies and strategies in developing areas. He is author of Malaysian Politics (London: Hodder Stoughton, 1976); editor of Development and Underdevelopment in Southeast Asia (Ottawa: Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies, 1976), and The Past in Southeast Asias Present (Ottawa: Canadian Council for Southeast Asia Studies, 1977); and has contributed to other books and journals. R. S. Milne is Professor Emeritus (Political Science) of the University of British Columbia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He previously taught at Bristol University, University of Wellington (New Zealand), University of the Philippines, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and Singapore University. He is author, co-author or editor of over a dozen books and author of about eighty articles. His most recent books include: Politics in Ethically Bipolar States: Guyana, Malaysia and Fiji (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981); (with Diane K. Mauzy) Malaysia: Tradition, Modernity, and Islam (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1986).
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Contributors
Neil Nevitte is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Alberta. He previously taught at Harvard University and at the University of Leeds. His research interests include minority nationalist movements and minority-state relations. His publications include Minorities and the Canadian State (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1985) and The Future of North America: Canada, the United States and Quebec Nationalism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979) as contributing co-editor, and he has published in a number of journals. Robert Oberst is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He is the author of Legislators and Representation in Sri Lanka: The Decentralization of Development Planning (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985) and he has contributed articles to such journals as Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and Public Administration and Development. Ralph P. Premdas is Visiting Professor of Political Science at McGill University. He has taught previously at the University of Guyana and the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Racial Politics in Guyana (Denver, Colorado: University of Denver Press, 1973) and several articles and monographs on Guyana's society and politics. Donald Rothchild is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. He has also served as a visiting professor at universities in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and Ghana. He is the author of a number of articles and books, including Racial Bargaining in Independent Kenya (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), Scarcity, Choice, and Public Policy in Middle Africa (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1978), and State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1983).
Index Amerindians, 161-163, 170 Amin, Idi, 37, 3 9 - 4 0 Amin, Samir, 53 Angola, 31, 35 Arabs, 40, 44 Armenia, 75 Ashanti, 23 Athulathmdali, Lalith, 151 Australia, 97 Avoidance policies definition of, 4 3 - 4 4 in Pakistan, 63-64 in Malaysia, 113 Azad Kasmir, 69-70, 72, 78, 84
Abeynaike, H.W., 154 Abuja, 22 Accra, 19, 23 Acheampong, Ignatius Kutu, 33 Adam, Heribert, 58, 158, 184 Adams, Carolyn Teich, 12 Adamson, Alan, 164, 185 Addis Ababa Agreement—1972, 42, 46, 59 Afghanistan, 44, 65 Africa, 19, 21, 26, 28, 38 Africans (Afro-Guyanese), 161-164, 166-168, 170-173, 175, 177-183 African-Indian cooperation, Guyana, 169 African-Indian violence, Guyana, 164, 168-170, 172, 177 African leaders, 28, 44, 169 African slaves, 162 African state, 20-23, 33-34, 38 Ahafo, 19, 23 Ahmad, Zakaria Haji, 117 Albino, Oliver, 42, 59 Algeria, 25, 32, 44 Alier, Abel, 59 All-Party Conference, Sri Lanka, 148 All Pakistan Unified Grades, 73, 81 Allen, Charles, 13 Allen, J. de V., 115 Alliance government, Malaya, 100-101 Alliance National Council, Malaya, 100 Almond, Gabriel A., 18, 54 Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad (ASN), Malaysia, 111, 125
Bacchus, M. K., 185 Badin, 72 Bahawalpur, 69 Bakongo, 30 Baluchistan, 63, 65-67, 69-72, 75, 77-78, 81 Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, 140, 142-144 Bandaranaike, S. W. R. D., 140, 144-145, 149 Bangladesh, 44, 63, 65, 67, 69 Bank Bumiputra, 111 Bank Pertanian (Agricultural Bank), Malaysia, 111 Bank Rakyat, 111 Bantustans, 21 Barnett, Tony, 54 Barrows, Walter L., 53 Barry, Brian, 159, 184 Bastian, Sunil, 154 Belgium, 37, 156
191
192
Index
Bengali, 10, 63-65, 69, 74 Benin, 27 Berghe, Pierre L. van den, 40, 58 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 70, 89 Biafra, 22, 30-31, 46 Bienen, Henry, 57 Binder, Leonard, 54 Blauner, Robert, 54 Bolan Medical College, 71 Booth, David, 54 Bonn, 22, 44 Borneo, 107, 112 Botha, Roelof, 27 Boulding, Kenneth E., 54 Braibanti, Ralph, 89 British Colonial Office, Guyana, 164-165, 168, 170 British colonialism effect on ethnic groups, 10-11, 96, 98, 138-139, 143, 162, 164, 170-171, 172-173 and Guyana, 162-175 effect on institutional development, 67 interests of British, 9 - 1 0 and land tenure, Malaysia, 97 and Malaysia, 97-99 effect on post-colonial environment, 11 and racism, 163-164 and Sri Lanka, 138-139 British Labour Party, 99 Brohi, 66 Buchanan, James M., 58 Buchheit, Lee C., 57 Buddhism, Sri Lanka, 136, 144-146 Buffering, policies of definition of, 45-46 in Malaysia, 113 Buhari, Mohammed, 48 Bumiputra, 111-112, 120, 125-127, 129-130 Bumiputra Investment Foundation, 111 Bumiputra trust agency, 110 Burghers, 136 Burki, Shahid Javed, 88 Burnham, Forbes, 161, 169-173, 175, 177-178, 180-183, 187 Burundi, 25, 27, 39-40, 47 Butler, Jeffrey, 60
Cameroun, 46, 49 Canada, 42 Canak, William, 134 Canberra, 22 Cardoso, Fernando Enrique, 12 Carmichael, Stokely, 54 Carter, Gwendolen M., 54, 56 Casanova, Pablo G., 54 Castagno, A. A., 60 Center-periphery relationship, 17-23, 28 Central Superior Service, 69, 84 Central Superior Service Exam (CSS), 69, 75, 78, 84 Ceylon Parliament Elections Amendment Act—1949, 143 Ceylon Worker's Congress, 145, 148 Chad, 22-23 Chandka Medical College, 72 Chase, Ashton, 185-186 Chee-Khoon, Tan, 105, 117 Chelliah, D. D., 115 Chelvanayagam, S. J. V., 140 Chinese businessmen, 127, 131 in Guyana, 161-162, 164, 170, 178 in Malaysia, 97-99, 105, 124, 126-128, 130 Christian mission schools in Guyana, 167-168, 170-171 in Malaysia, 98 in Sri Lanka, 138-139, 142, 144 Christianity, Sri Lanka, 136, 138, 144 Civil bureaucracy as arena preferential policy, 8 and colonialism, 8-9, 66-67 and ethnic representation, Guyana, 166-168, 170, 172-173, 175, 178-180 and ethnic representaiton, Sri Lanka, 148-149 and language issue, Sri Lanka, 145 recruitment quotas, Malaysia, 104-105 recruitment quotas, Pakistan, 68-70, 72-73, 81 representativeness of, 64, 67-68 and Weberian ideal of neutrality, 8
índex Civil Service Association (CSA), Guyana, 171 Citizenship Act—1948, 142-143 Class and capitalism, 20, 22 conflicts, 20-21 and ethnicity, 127-131 interests, 21 Clementi, Cecil, 185 Cliffe, L., 54 Clough, Michael, 60 Cohen, Abner, 53 Cohen, Stephen P., 13 Coleman, James S., 54 College of Dentistry, 72 College of Home Economics, Karachi, 72 Colonial Medical Service, Guyana, 166 Colonialism, see British colonialism in Guyana, 162-175 heritage, 3 - 4 effect on institutions, 67, 166-167 internal, 18, 20-21 in Malaysia, 96-98 and open competitive market, 158-159 overrule, 17 paternalism, 19 and penetration, 19-20 effect on post-colonial ethic demands, 31-32 in Sri Lanka, 138-139, 143 Comber, Leon, 117 Combined Court, Guyana, 164-165, 168 Conference of Rulers, 102-103 Congress of Unions of Employees in Public and Civil Services (CUEPAC), 121 Connor, Walker, 53, 55 Consociational model, 159, 177 Constitutions Malaysia, 102-103 Pakistan, 69 Sri Lanka—1972, 145 Sri Lanka—1978, 145-146, 151 Coser, Lewis A., 54 Crowley, Daniel J., 59 Cultural assimilation, policy of definition of, 41-42
193
in Liberia, 43 in Malaysia, 113 in Pakistan, 63-64, 66 in Sri Lanka, 139, 145-146 Curry, Robert L., 53 Customs Service, 105 Cyprus, 41, 44 Dadu, 72 D'aguiar, Peter, 170, 175, 178 Dallin, Alexander, 57 Danns, George K., 187 David, W. C., 185 Davidow, Jeffery, 60 De Caries, David, 187 De Silva, C. R., 154 De Silva, K. M., 154 Decalo, Samuel, 54 Department of Aborigines, Malaysia, 112 Decentralized Budget, 149 Dera Ishmail Khan, 71 Despres, Leo, 183-186 Determinations of ethnie membership in Malaysia, 112 in Pakistan, 76-78, 81, 84-85 Deutsch, Karl W„ 55, 58 Devanayagam, K.W., 148 Displacement, policies of definition of, 44—45 in Malaysia, 113 in Sri Lanka, 139 Dissanayaka, T. D. S. A., 154 District Development Councils (DDC), 149-150 Domicile, Pakistan, 76-78, 81, 84-85 Doornbos, M.R., 54 Dow Medical College, 71-72 Dryzek, John, 12 Dunn, John, 19 Dye, Kenneth, 57 East Indians (Indians—IndoGuyanese), 161-164, 166-173, 175, 177-183 East Pakistan, 64, 67-69 Easton, David, 57 Educational institutions admissions and language in Sri Lanka, 146-147
194
Index
admissions quotas in Malaysia, 106-108 admissions quotas in Pakistan, 71-74 admissions quotas in Sri Lanka, 146-147 as arena of preferential policies, 8 Christian schools, Guyana, 167-168, 170-171 Christian schools, Sri Lanka, 142, 144 in Malaysia, 98, 106 in Pakistan, 64 Eelam, 151 Eisenstadt, S. N., S3 Emmanuel, Arghiri, 53 Enloe, Cynthia, 54, 58, 60, 166, 173, 184-187 English language, Sri Lanka, 136, 138-139, 144, 146 Eritrea, 22, 30, 41, 46 Esman, Milton J., 53, 56, 89, 184 Establishment Division, Pakistan, 69, 75 Ethiopia, 35, 37, 44 Ethnic demands negotiable demands, 26-30, 34, 95, 128, 135, 159 non-negotiable demands (see hegemony), 24, 26-30, 34, 128, 135, 159 Ethnic group and individual identity, 2 politicization of, 15 as utility maximizers, 6, 15 Ethnic mobilizations, 95, 100 Ethnic preference policies, see quotas capacity of state as formulator of policy, 32-38 cost and benefits, Malaysia, 112-115 cost of ethnic preference policies, Pakistan, 81, 84-85, 87 distinction between Western and LDC policies, 2-4 PNC policies, Guyana, 179-180 effects of privatization, Malaysia, 124-131 Ethnic violence African-Indian violence, 164, 168-170, 172, 177
East-West Pakistan, 41 Malaysia, 102-103 Sri Lanka, 147-148, 150-152 Evans, Peter, 12 Ewe, 30 Exchange theory, 5 - 7 External Affairs Service, Malaysia, 105 Faletto, Enzo, 12 Fanon, Frantz, 31, 53, 57 Farley, Rawle, 184 Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority, Malaysia, 111 Federal Council (Majlis-i-Shura), Pakistan, 63-64 Federal Land Development Authority, Malaysia, 111 Federal Party, Sri Lanka, 137, 140, 145, 149, 152 Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), Pakistan, 69, 73, 75, 84 Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan, 65, 72, 78 Federation of Unions of Government Employees (FUGE), Guyana, 171 Fernando Poo, 27 Fiji, 156 Fisheries Development Authority, Malaysia, 111 Fleet Group, 129 Foley, Michael, 57 Fourth Malaysia Plan, 129 Fraenkel, Merran, 59 Frantz, C., 57 Free Village Movement, 163 Friedman, Milton, 122 Front for the National Liberation of Chad (FROLINAT), 22 Fulbe, 44 Furnivall, J. S., 3, 12, 96, 115, 157, 185 Gale, Bruce, 118 Galtung, Johan, 53 Gandhi, Indira, 54 Geertz, Clifford, 53 Georgetown, 172 Ghabashi, Philip Abbas, 59 Ghai, Y. P., 60 Ghana, 19, 23, 27, 29, 33, 37, 44, 46—47, 49-50
Index Giliomee, Hermann, 58 Girling, J. L. S., 134 Glazer, Nathan, 53 Goaso, 19 Gomal University, 71 Goodin, Robert, 12 Gordon, Milton M. 26, 55 Greater Somailia, 30 Greene, J. E., 185 Groth, Alexander, 56-57 Guinea, 23, 35, 44 Gujaratis, 10 Guyana (also British Guiana) African-Indian cooperation, 169 African-Indian violence, 164, 168-170, 172, 177 African leaders, 169 Africans (Afro-Guyanese), 161-164, 166-173, 175, 177-183 Amerindians, 161-163, 170 Chinese, 161-162, 164, 170, 178 East Indians (Indo-Guyanese), 161-164, 166-173, 175, 177-183 Europeans, 161-162, 170 Federation of Unions of Government Employees (FUGE), 171 Guyana Defense Force (GDF), 177 GUYSTAC, 179 Jaganites, 170-171 People's National Congress (PNC), 170-171, 177-179, 181-182 People's Progressive Party (PPP), 169, 172, 177-178, 182 Political Affairs Committee (PAC), 169 Portuguese, 161-162, 164, 170, 175, 178 United States, 177, 179 Guyana Defense Force (GDF), 177 GUYSTAC, 179 Haas, Ernst, 57 Habre, Hissene, 23 Halpern, Manfred, 58 Hamilton, Charles V., 54 Hanf, Theodor, 55 Hanley, Eric R., 186 Hargrove, Erwin C., 55
195
Harrison, Selig, 88-89 Hazara, 71 Heath, Anthony, 12 Hechter, Michael, 20, 54 Helco, Hugh, 12 Hegemonial exchange, see ethnic demands, 18, 25-26, 28, 63, 101, 128, 135, 152, 157-159 Hegemonial exchange state systems characteristics of, 36-38 and nature of demands, 34-35 policies of protection, 46—47 redistribution, 47-49 sharing, 49-50 in Sri Lanka, 135-136, 152 Hegemonial state systems characteristics of, 34-36 and nature of demands, 34-35 policies of avoidance, 43-44, 63-64 buffering, 45-46 cultural assimilation, 41-43 displacement, 44-45 isolation, 40—41 sujection, 39-40, 63 Hegemony, see ethnic demands, 25-26, 28, 63, 128, 131, 135, 156-158, 183 Heidenheimer, Arnold, 12 Hereros, 39 Hindko, 66 Hinduism, Sri Lanka, 136 Hintzen, Percy C., 58, 184, 186-187 Hitam, Datuk Musa, 125, 132-133 Hitler, Adolf, 51 Holt, Robert T., 12 Hoong, Yip Yat, 117 Hope, R., 186 Horizontally stratified societies, 27, 29 Horowitz, Donald, 13, 21, 54 Houphouet-Boigny, Félix, 36 Hui, Lim Mah, 134 Huntington, Samuel, 12, 55, 58-59, 155, 184 Husain, Agha Iftikhar, 88 Hyden, Goran, 34, 57 Hyderabad, 70, 72 Ibadan, 22
196
Index
Ibo, 31 Ilchman, Warren F., 53 India, 10, 61, 63-65, 143 Indian farmers, 180-181 Indian and Pakistani Residents Act—1949, 143 Indian Revolt, 10 Indian Tamils, 136, 142-144, 148-149 Indians, 98-99, 105, 143 Indo-Ceylon Agreement—1964, 143 Industrial Coordiation Act—1975, 127 Internal Colonialism model, 20-22 International Commission of Jurists, 150, 173, 175 Iran, 40-41 Iraq, 40-41 Isaacs, Harold, 53, 55 Islamabad, 66, 70, 81 Isolation, policies of definition of, 40—41 in Malaysia, 113 Israel, 40 Ivory coast, 36, 49 Jackman, Robert W., 58 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, 45 Jacobabad, 72 Jaffna Tamils, 148 Jagan, Cheddi, 161, 169-173, 175, 177-179, 181-182, 185 Jaganites, 170-171 Jahan, Rounaq, 88 Japan, 119, 123, 130 Jaster, Robert S., 60 Jayawardena, Chandra, 184 Jayawardene, J. R., 143 Jews, 44-45 Jinnah, Muhammed Ali, 63-64 Judicial and Legal Services, Malaysia, 105 Jung, Huang Ying, 117 Jupp, James, 153 Kamana, Onyeonoro, 57 Karachi, 65-66, 69-72, 81, 85 Karis, Thomas, 54 Karran, Terence, 57 Kasfir, Nelson, 58-59 Katanga, 22, 30, 41
Katzenstein, Mary F., 12-13 Kaunda, Kenneth, 25, 55-56 Kearney, Robert N., 153 Kennedy, Charles H., 8, 61, 89 Kenya, 15, 27-30, 36-37, 4 5 - 5 0 Kenyatta, Jomo, 36 Keohane, Robert O., 58 Khairpur, 69, 72 Khan, Ayub, 89 King Edward Medical College, 71 Kitchen, Helen, 58 Kodikara, Shelton U., 153 Kontena Nasional, Malaysia, 123 Kotelawala, Sir John, 140 Kothari, Rajni, 18, 53 Kuala Lumpur, 122 Kunda, A, 186 Kuper, Leo, 32, 54, 56-57 Kurds, 40-41 Lahore, 66, 71, 81 Lahore Resolution—1939, 64 Laithin, David D., 59, 61 La Palombara, Joseph, 13, 18, 54 Lapidus, Gail W., 57 Larkana, 72 Lebanaon, 15, 41, 44, 123, 156 Legum, Colin, 55 Lemarchand, René, 55 Lévesque, René, 42, 59 Leys, Colin, 53 Liaqat Medical College, 72, 84 Liberia, 27, 41, 43-44 Libya, 23 Lieber, Robert, 57 Lijphart, Arend, 59, 159, 184 Lindblom, Charles, 35, 58 Ling, Seih-Lee Mei, 118 Livestock Development Corperations, Malaysia, 111 Lofchie, Michael, 56 Loh, Philip, 115 Look East Policy, 119, 130 Lowenkopf, Martin, 59 Lustick, Ian, 54, 58, 158, 184 Lutchman, H., 185-186 Lyallpur, 71 McAuslan, J. P. W. B., 60 MacDonald, Malcolm, 116
Index Mahathir Mohamad, Datak Seri, 114, 119, 121-124, 126, 128-129, 131 Majlis Amanah Ra'ayat (Council of Trust for the Indigenous People) (MARA), Malaysia, 111, 120, 123, 126 Malakand, 71 Malay Adminstrative Service (MAS), 97, 104, 123, 127 Malay language, 100, 103, 106 Malay managers and businessmen, 125-128, 130 Malay rulers, 96, 97, 103 Malay special rights (also Malay reservations), 96, 98-104, 107, 112, 115 Malayan Chinese Association, 100, 127 Malayan Civil Service, 97, 104-105 Malayan Indian Congress, 100 Malayan Union, 99, 124 Malays, 9 6 - 1 0 1 , 103-108, 110, 112, 124-131 Malaysia (also Malaya) Alliance government, 100-101 Bumiputra, 111-112, 120, 125-127, 129, 130 Chinese, 9 7 - 9 9 , 105, 124, 126-128, 130-131 Chinese businessmen, 127, 131 Indians, 98-99, 105 Look East Policy, 119, 130 Malay Administrative Service (MAS), 97, 104 Majlis Amanah Ra'ayat (Council of Trust for the Indigenous People) (MARA), 111, 120, 123, 126 Malay language, 100, 103, 106 Malay managers and businessmen, 125-128, 130 Malay rulers, 96-97, 103 Malay special rights (also Malay reservations), 96, 98-104, 107, 112, 115 Malayan Civil Service, 97, 104, 105 Malayan Union, 99, 124 Malays, 9 6 - 1 0 1 , 103-108, 110, 112, 124-131
197
New Economic Policy (NEP), 102-105, 108, 110-112, 114, 119-120, 123-128, 130-131 Paramount Ruler (Yang di-Pertuan Agong), 102, 107 Perbadanan (PERNAS), 11, 120, 125 Permodalan (National Equity Corporation) (PNB), 111, 125 riots—1969, 102, 103 State Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), 111, 120-121, 125 United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 99-101, 115, 129-130 Malaysia Certificate of Examinations, 106 Malaysia Inc. policy, 119 Malaysian Administrative and Diplomatic Service, 105 Malaysian Industrial Development Fund, 111 Malasian International Shipping Company (MISC), 123 Malaysian Islamic Party, 128 Malawi, 47, 49 Mandle, Jay, 180, 187 Maquet, Jacuqes J., 58 Martin, Jane J., 59 Marx, Fritz Morstein, 13 Marxism and class, 33 and ethnic dominance, 157 Mason, Fredric, 115 Mason, Philip, 58 Matthews, Bruce, 154 Matthews, Daniel G., 61 Mauzy, Diane K., 131-133 Mazrui, Ali A., 55, 59 Means, Gordon P., 8, 61, 116, 118-119 Merit principle, 81, 87 Migdal, Joel S„ 12 Miliband, Ralph, 33, 57 Military recruitment quotas in Malaysia, 105-106, 126 recruitment quotas in Pakistan, 73-74
198
Index
representativeness in Guyana, 173, 177, 180 in Pakistan, 64, 67 Milne, R. S., 9, 131-134, 175, 184, 186-187 Ministry of Defense, Pakistan, 75 Ministry of Public Enterprises, Malaysia, 120 Ministry of Trade and Industry, Malaysia, 128 Missionary Societies Act—1962, 42 Mitchell, Adrian, 186 Moore, Barrington, 7, 12 Moorhouse, Geoffrey, 13 Moors, 136, 149 Morgenthau, Ruth Schachter, 59 Moynihan, Daniel P., 53 Mozambique, 31, 35 Mphanhlele, Ezekiel, 59 Muhajirs, 6 5 - 6 7 Multi-purpose holdings, 127 Muslim League, 64 M uso If, Lloyd D., 58 Muzaffar, Chandra, 134 Nagata, Judith, 118 Nagle, Stuart S., 12 Namas, 39 Namibia, 4 5 - 4 6 Narine, S., 187 Nath, Dwarka, 184 National Agricultural Policy, 126 National Cadet Corps, Pakistan, 74 National College of Arts, 72 National Consultative Council, Malaysia, 102 National Operations Council, Malaysia, 102 National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), 22 National Unit Trust Scheme, Malaysia, 111 National Unity Equity Corporation, Malaysia, 111 Nawabshah, 72 Nawabshah Medical College, 77-78 Nazi Germany, 25 New Economic Policy (NEP), 102-105, 108, 110, 111-112, 114, 119-120, 123-128, 130-131
Newman, Peter, 185 Niekerk, Willem van, 46 Nigeria, 15, 27-28, 37, 4 6 - 5 0 Nizam-i-Islam (Islamic Order), 63 Nordlinger, Eric A., 57, 59, 184 Northern Areas, Pakistan, 78, 84 Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), 65-66, 70, 75, 77, 81 Northern Ireland, 15, 37, 41 Nyerere, Julius, 31 Oberschall, Anthony, 56 Oberst, Robert C., 10, 154 Obote, Milton, 42, 59 Obsanjo, Olusegun, 37 Official Language Act, Sri Lanka, 145 Olorunsola, Victor, 56 Olson, Mancur, 12 O'Meara, Patrick, 56 One Unit Plan—1959, 63, 71 Open Competitive Market Model, 158-159 Orang Asli, 112 Organization of Africa Unity (O.A.U.), 46 Owusu, Maxwell, 53, 59 Oxaal, Ivan, 54 Oye, Kenneth, 57 Oyovbaire, S. Egite, 56 Pakhtunistan, 67 Pakistan, 11, 41, 143 Azad Kashmir, 69-70, 72, 78, 84 Bahawalpur, 69 Baluch, 63, 65-66, 75 Baluchi language, 6 5 - 6 6 Baluchistan, 65-67, 6 9 - 7 2 , 77-78, 81 Bangladesh, 63, 65, 67, 69 Bengali, 10, 63-65, 69, 74 Brohi, 66 Central Superior Service, 69, 84 Central Superior Service Exam (CSS), 69, 75, 78, 84 domicile, 76-78, 8 1 - 8 5 East Pakistan, 64, 67-69 Establishment Division, 69, 75 Federal Council (Majlis-i-Shura), 63-64 Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), 69, 73, 75, 84
Index
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), 65, 72, 78 Hindko, 66 India, 63-65 Lahore Resolution—1939, 64 Muslim League, 64 Muhajirs, 65-67 Nizam-i-Islam (Islamic Order), 63 Northern Areas, 78, 84 Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), 65-66, 70, 75, 77, 81 One Unit Plan—1959, 63, 71 Pakhtunistan, 67 Pathans, 10, 63 Provincial Civil Service, 70 Punjab, 65, 67, 69-70, 72, 75, 77-78, 85, 87 Punjai language, 65-66 Punjabis, 10, 63, 65-67, 75, 85 Pushto, 65-66 Sind, 65-67, 69, 70, 75, 77-78, 81, 84 Sindhi, 63, 65, 67, 75, 78 Sindhi Language, 65-66 Siraiki, 66 Ummah (community of Islamic believers), 63 Urdu, 65-66 West Pakistan, 63, 67-69 Pakistan Citizenship Act—1951, 76 Panter-Brick, S. K., 56 Paramount Ruler (Yang di Pertuan Agong), 102, 107 Parkinson, C. Nothcote, 115 Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), 128 Pathans, 10, 63 Patronage in Guyana, 177, 179, 182 in Malaysia, 113, 114 in Pakistan, 68 in Sri Lanka, 148 Pearson, Drew, 186 Pelejaran, Kementerian, 117 Penang, 123 People's National Congress (PNC), 170-171, 177-179, 181-182 People's Progressive Party (PPP), 169, 172, 177-178, 182 Perbadanan (PERNAS), 111, 120, 125 Permodalan (National Equity Corporation) (PNB), 111, 125
199
Peshawar, 71 Petaling Jaya, 124 Peters, Guy, 12 Phadnis, Urmila, 153 Plaid Cymru, 56 Plural society, 96, 164 Poland, 44 Police recruitement in Guyana, 180 recruitment quota in Malaysia, 105, 128 Policy analysis efficiency of, 18-24 and interethnic conflict, 24-25 Policy approach advantages of, 6-7, 16-17, 24-25 to ethnic preference, 4-7, 9 and reduction of interethnic conflict, 50-52 Political Affairs Committee, Guyana, 169 Political Authority scheme, Sri Lanka, 149 Political systems framework, 16 Polyarchical system, 28 Ponnambalam, G. G., 140, 142, 153 Ponnambalam, Satchi, 153 Port Kelang, 122-123 Portuguese, 151-162, 164, 170, 175, 178 Post, Kenneth, 56 Premdas, Ralph, 7, 58, 184-187 Prevention of Terrorism Act—1979, 150 Price, Robert M., 53, 55 Privatization policy, Malaysia, see quotas, Malaysia and class, 127-131 and Malay, non-Malay relations, 124-131 proposals, 120-124 Proportionality principle, 28, 68, 87, 128 Protection, policies of, definition of, 46-47 in Malaysia, 113 and Nigerian constitution—1979, 47 Provincial Civil Service, Pakistan, 70 Przeworski, Adam, 12
200
Index
Punjab, 65, 67, 69-70, 72, 75, 77-78, 85, 87 Punjabi language, 6 5 - 6 6 Punjabis, 10, 63, 65-67, 75, 85 Pushto, 65-66 Puthucheary, Mavis, 132-134 Pye, Lucian W., 55 Qaid-i-Azam University, 72 Quotas, Malaysia and civil bureaucracy, 104-105 in commercial and industrial enterprises, 108, 110 constitutional safeguards, 102 costs and benefits of, 112-115 and economic preferences, 108, 110-111 and educational institutions, 106-108 and NEP, 104 Quotas, Pakistan civil bureaucratic, 68-70, 72-73, 86 corruption in administration of, 85 costs of, 81, 84-85, 87 in educational institutions, 71-74, 86 effectiveness of, 78, 81 gender, 72-73 operation of, 74-78 provincial, 70, 86 public, 70, 86 special interest, 73-74, 85-86 Queddai, Goukani, 23 Quetta, 66, 81 Rabushka, Alvin, 58, 183 Radcliffe, David J., 115 Rahman, Tunku Abdul, 103, 117 Rajadurai, C., 148 Rajanasthien, Boonchu, 131 Rao, K.V. Narayana, 93 Rawalpindi, 66, 71, 81 Razak, Abdul, 104 Redistributional policies definition of, 47-48 in Malaysia, 113 and Nigerian Constitution—1979, 48 in Pakistan, 64-68 Rehman, Sheik Mujibur, 89 Reid Commission, 101
Reid, Lord, 101 Remedial or compensatory principle, 68-69, 81 Rhodesia, 27, 29, 32, 37 Rice Marketing Board, 181 Roberts, G.W., 185 Robertson, A.F., 19, 54 Rodney, Walter, 182 Rodway, James, 184 Roff, William R., 115 Rogers, Cyril A., 57 Rokkan, Stein, 54 Rosberg, Carl G., 55 Rose, Richard, 57 Rothchild, Donald, 6 - 7 , 53, 55-61, 87, 95, 101, 113, 119, 128, 130-131, 135, 139, 152, 157-159, 184 Rothman, Jay, 154 Rudner, Martin, 115, 117 Rukunegara, Malaysia, 102-103 Rusinow, Dennison, 59 Rwanda, 25, 27 Sabah, 107, 112, 123 Sackey, James A., 187 St. Jorre, John de, 41, 59 Sanghar, 72 Sarawak, 107, 112 Saudara Bara, 112 Saul, John S., 53 Sayeed, Khalid bin, 89 Sargodha, 71 Schelling, Thomas C., 12 Schlemmer, Lawrence, 55 Schlesinger, Arthur Jr., 186 Schutz, Barry M., 32, 57 Scotland, 37 Second Malaysia Plan, 102-103 Selangor Land Code—1891, 97 Segmental accomodation, 159, 161 Senegal, 50 Sharing policies definition of, 4 9 - 5 0 in Malaysia, 113 in Sri Lanka, 139-140 Shastri, Lai Bahadur, 143 Shepsle, Howard 183 Shikapur, 72 Slimming, John, 117 Siddique, Sharon, 118
Index Sieghart, Paul, 154 Sierra Leone, 27, 44 Sikhs, 10 Sin, Tun Tan Siew, 123, 132 Sind, 65-67, 69, 70, 75, 77-78, 81, 84 Sind Permanent Residence Appellate Tribunal, 77-78 Sind Permanent Residence Certificate Rules, 77 Sindhi, 63, 65, 67, 75, 77-78 Sindhi language, 6 5 - 6 6 Singapore, 99 Singh, Paul, 185 Singh, Supriya, 132-133 Sinhala, 136, 140, 144-146 Sinhalese, 135-139, 142, 144-152 Siraiki, 66 Sivathamby, K., 153 Schwarz, Walter, 60 Smith, M.G., 56, 58, 157, 184-185 Smith, R.T., 183 Smith, S.A. de, 60 Smooha, Sammy, 158, 184 South Africa's Group Areas Act, 44 Southern Sudan, 42 Southern Soudan Liberation Movement, 46 Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO), 46 Springer, Fred, 58 Sri Lanka (also Ceylon) Buddhism, 136, 144-146 Burghers, 136 Ceylon Worker's Congress, 145, 148 Christianity, 136, 138, 144 English language, 136, 138-139, 144, 146 Federal Party, 137, 140, 145, 149, 152 Hinduism, 136 India, 143 Indian Tamils, 136, 142-144, 148-149 Indians, 143 Islam, 136 Moors, 136, 149 Pakistanis, 143 Sinhalese, 135-139, 142, 144-152 Sinhalese leadership, 150
201
Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 137, 144-145, 147-149, 152 Sri Lanka Tamils (also Ceylon Tamils), 136-137, 140, 142, 147-149 Tamils, 10, 45, 135-140, 142-153 Tamil Congress, 137, 140, 142, 145 Tamil language, 135, 144-146 Tamil leadership, 140, 142, 147 Tamil-Sinhalese relations, 140, 142, 145-147 Tamil-Sinhalese violence, 147-148, 150-152 Tamil "tiger" organizations, 148, 150-152 Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), 137, 147-148, 150-151 United Front, 145-146 United National Party (UNP), 137, 140, 142, 144-148, 151-152 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 137, 144-145, 147-149, 152 Sri Lanka Tamils (also Ceylon Tamils), 136-137, 140, 142, 147-149 State Economic Development Corporations (SEDC), 111, 120-121, 125 Steiner, Jurg, 159, 184 Stevens, Siaka, 44 Stultz, Newell, 54 Subjection policies in Burundi, 40 definition of, 3 9 - 4 0 in Malaysia, 113 in Pakistan, 63 in South Africa, 40 in Sri Lanka, 147 Subramaniam, V., 13 Sudan 15, 27-28, 30, 37, 41, 46, 50 Suffian bin Hashim, Tan Sri Mohamed, 112, 116-118 Sukkur, 70, 72 Sultan Idris College, 97 Sundaram, Jomo Kwame, 118, 131 Suryadinata, Leon, 118 Suwanibol, Issara, 134 Swabasha, Sri Lanka, 144 Swan, Tan Khoon, 122 Syed, Anwar, 89
202
Index
Tamil Congress, 137, 140, 142, 145 Tamil language, 136, 144-146 Tamil Language Act—1958, 140, 145 Tamil Language Regulations—1966, 145 Tamil leadership, 140, 142, 147 Tamils, 10, 45, 135-140, 142-153 Tamil-Sinhalese relations, 140, 142, 145-147 Tamil-Sinhalese violence, 147-148, 150-152 Tamil "tiger" organizations, 148, 150-152 Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), 137, 147-148, 150-151 Tanzania, 31, 35, 47, 50 Teik, Goh Cheng, 117 Teune, Henry, 12 Thailand, 131 Thatta, 72 Tharparkar, 72 Thillainathan, R., 132 Thondaman, S., 151 Tilly, Charles, 7, 13 Tilman, Robert O., 115, 117 Torrens land tenure system, 96-97 Tour6, S6kou, 23, 44, 49, 60 Tubman, W. V. S., 43 Tullock Gordon, 58 Turner, John E., 12 Traub, James, 55 TV3, Malaysia, 123-124, 129 Uganda, 25, 37, 39, 40, 42, 44-46 Ummah, 63 Union of South Africa, 15, 21, 25, 27, 37, 4 0 - 4 1 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 44-45 United Force, 170 United Front, Sri Lanka, 145-146 United Kingdom, 108 United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 99-101, 115, 129-130 United National Party (UNP), 137, 140, 142, 144-148, 151-152 United Nations Resolution 435, 107 United States, 177, 179 Universiti Islam (Islamic University, Malaysia), 107
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia), 107 University of Malaya, 106-107 Uphoff, Norman T., 53 Urban Development Authority (UDA), 120 Urdu, 65-66 Urdu language policy, 63 Van Dyke, Vernon, 57, 60 Vasil, Raja K., 185 Velvetthurai, 150-151 Verba, Sidney, 12 Vertically stratified societies, 27-29, 31 Vickers, Michael, 56 Vierdag, Gerda, 55 Vietnam, 44 Varys, Karl von, 60 Wade, Larry L., 56 Wai, Dustan M., 59 Warsaw, 44 Washington D.C., 22 Weerasooriya, Wickrema, 154 Weiland, Heribert, 55 Weinbaum, Marvin G. 59 Weiner, Myron, 12, 55, 93 Weinrich, A.K.H., 57 Weinstein, Brian, 53 Wells, R.J.G., 118 West Germany, 4 4 - 4 5 West Pakistan, 63, 6 7 - 6 9 Whiteman, K., 56 Wildavsky, Aaron, 52, 61 Williams, Eric 184 Wilson, A. Jeyaratnam, 153 Wölpe, Harold, 21, 54 Wolpert, Stanley, 13 Women's Guards, Pakistan, 74 Wright, Theordore P. Jr., 88 Young, Alan, 184 Young, Crawford, 56, 183 Zainuddin, Encick Diam, 129-130 Zaire, 27 Zambia, 15, 22, 27, 29-30, 46^17, 49 Zanzibar, 25, 27, 40
Index
Zia-ul Haq, 63, 66, 89 Ziring, Lawrence, 89 Zimbabwe, 46, 50
203